Zorbing – London

   7^th August

Today I took Kieran out for 1 of her Birthday presents. Not knowing what was in store. We travelled by train for an hr to get to the north of London and then a cab ride had us out the front of horse stables. Kieran now thinking we were going horse riding. I had to ask the stable ladies if I had the right place she soon found out what we were doing. ZORBING!. At the moment I asked the stable ladies we found the zorb operator as we had to hop into her 4wd and get taken through the fields to the hill where our plastic ball roll was to take place.

Talking to the operators and deciding on which one we wanted to do. Wet or Dry were our options. We chose Dry as there was less effort for us and more of an experience with the tumbling. The wet looked liked it was more of a ride down a hill in a bath than zorbing.

Superman diving through the entry/exit hole. Kieran was strapped in first then glen as Kieran dangled over head. We were ready for our first roll (we paid for 2). Kieran was rolling head first into the ground as I was coming around behind her with my feet first. Going around and around with the operators pushing us from behind. Before we knew it the first roll was over, with a few screams from Kieran along the way. We were birthed out of the ball coming out hands first. We hopped back in the 4wd and taken back up the hill for our second go.

Second turn down the hill and this time Glen was going down head first. The first go around Kieran could feel the pressure on the back of her head as she rolled over the ground. The second turn was the same as the first but with a few less screams from Kieran and more of a sound of relief when we got to the bottom. Removing the straps and getting out again out time of zorbing was all over. Back in the 4wd to be returned to the gate.

Afterwards we went to the pub over the road for a drink and some chips as we made sure to only have a light lunch before the tumbling.

Liverpool

31^st July – 1^st August

This weekend we went away to Liverpoool, home of the Beatles. We headed away with Kristen and Jeff. Kristen could get some cheap tickets for the trains through her work so we all took the chance to go up there.

While in Liverpool we did a 3 hrs black cab tour of all the places now made famous by the Beatles. We definitely got our moneys worth and our knowledge banks full of Beatles information. We saw the houses and even the hospital where John Lennon was born! There is a lot of these spots still on the tourist route although they have changed function over the years.

We spent our Saturday night out at the Cavern night club (where the Beatles first performed) leaving in the wee hours to find the masses of stag and hens doos surrounding us as we left! It is definitely a place for these kind of parties as the trash was out that night.

Sunday we had a bit of a lay in, a walk back to the shops for a look around. A nice lunch and a choose your own milkshake where we could add in anything we wanted. Think coldrock of the milkshake world. Kieran was in Heaven.

Scotland Wedding

6^th -10^th July 2010

Getting home just the night before at 11pm, we were lucky to have pre packed some clothes before leaving for Belgium. Today we were off to Scotland for Daniel and Shelley’s wedding. Arriving in Edinburgh we made our way to the hostel upon arrival we met the rest of the gang and had to quickly get ready for the night out on the town for the bucks and hens nights.

This was to be only a small and intimate wedding. In total there were 20 of us. Having a big night out and making our way back to the hostel around 3-4am (its all a bit cloudy). Waking the next morning for check out at 10:30 and to get our bus to Hoscote house where we will be spending our next few days and where the wedding will be taking place.

On the almost 2 hr bus journey to Hoscote house I am sure most of the bus slept from their big nights previous. We were in a rather large bus as the mini coach we were meant to have broke down and we were in a replacement. This was wonderful news as we all got 2 seats to ourselves to spread out on. Upon arrival and making our way up the drive way the house looked amazing on approach. We were all shown to our rooms most in the main house. Kieran, Me, Craig and Shannon were all staying in a cottage still on the property but a bit of a walk from the main house. Upon locating our cottage it was amazing. It looked really nice and modern inside with some very comfy and luxurious furniture inside. We were wondering if this is what our accommodation looks like the main house can only be better, and it was! Just have a look at some of the pictures.

After arrival we had a late lunch before going on a grand tour of the house. That afternoon the men were to enjoy the comforts of the gym with a sauna and a spa. It was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend the afternoon. The house had a rule of no alcohol allowed in the spa which was unfortunate as they forced us to break it.

While the men were bonding in the spa and sauna the women were having a [Kieran will fill in what the women did]

That night we had a barbeque dinner; this was a good way for me (Glen) and Kieran to meet the members of the family we had no yet had time to talk with. It was kept very much as men and women until this point. The dinner was wonderful and well cooked if I do say so myself (not just cos I cooked it).

The next morning the day of the wedding the young men woke early for an hr long run then back to the house to get ready for our 8am trip to a clay pigeon shooting field for some shooting and breakfast. We started with breakfast and then had a brief instruction from the shooting teacher. The teacher would stay in the box as we all took turns shooting at the clay. It was a competition. We were scored for a hit and the person with the most at the end would get a prize. Needless to say it was not I who won. This could be seen as a good thing.

Returning back to the house we had lunch and then off to get ready for the wedding.

While the men were out shooting pieces of clay the women were [Kieran will fill in what the women did]

Getting dolled up we walked down the path to the main house. It felt good to be separated from the main house as it felt like we were going to the wedding not just downstairs. Meeting the other guest and the bag piper who we followed to the walled garden where the ceremony was taking place. Finding our seats and getting ready for the arrival of the groom (or boys in kilts I should say) we then had the arrival of the bride and the beginning of the ceremony……..fill in the rest…say something nice about the shortness.

The reception took place in the formal dining room. We had a delicious 3 course dinner and a main course of lamb. [Side note: travelling up in the bus the days before we drove past many fields with sheep and I am confident to say I was not the only one with a craving for lamb]. Like all good weddings we ended the night by dancing it away, the odd lone men moshpit and a slow dance. Ending the night by eating some haggis and mash in the most Scottish place I have ever been. It was a really nice and intimate wedding.

We had breakfast the following day with the entire group after which we headed back into Edinburgh for our farewells. Kieran and I stayed on an extra day to see some more of the city and do a walking tour. In true Scottish fashion it rained while on that walking tour, this means the 2 times Kieran has been there it has rained both and been super windy. That’s it Scotland you have had your chance. If it was not for the good times we had at the wedding we would have written you off as a whole but we thank you for your picturesque country side and a place where our friends Daniel and Shelley can have fond memories of their wedding day in your country side. Thanks to Daniel and Shelley too for the invitation to be part of their special day together.

Now onto organising ours!

Rock Werchter

1^st - 5^th July 2010

Rock Werchter is a 4 day music festival in Werchter, Belgium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Werchter

Being summer in Europe we had to take advantage of at least one festival this year. As Glen missed this festival in 2008 by being back in Aus we decided to go to it this year. A group of friends were going so why not join in and go see some awesome bands for cheaper than in the UK and get a holiday overseas as well.

Kieran, me and a few others headed out on Wednesday night on the eurostar (train) to Belgium. It takes just over 2hrs to get to Brussels. We decided to go a day earlier as the price of the morning tickets went up dramatically by the time we went to book. It was cheaper to go the night before and stay in a hostel. Going the night before meant we didn’t have to get up at 4am to catch the eurostar.

Meeting up with the rest of the group (there were 10 of us in total) the next day we caught a train from Brussels to Leuven then from Leuven we caught a bus to Werchter where we then had (I would say) a 2km walk to our camp ground. There was no pre determined area that you had to camp in. We went to one which was close to the festival grounds, although it was still a 15min walk away! Trudgin  g all our camping equipment to the ground we finally made it and started to set up our campsite. It was Thursday and turned out to be a 34 degrees Celsius that day. Once setup it was time for a drink and a chill out in our chairs. The first bands did not start playing until 4pm and it was only 2pm when we had finished setting up.

Come 4pm we wandered down to the festival grounds having a look around and listening to some music it was an awesome way to start the 4 days of music, beer and sunshine. The festival only had 2 stages making it easy to go from stage to stage to see the band you wanted.

The next few days pretty much all went by in the same fashion of getting up around 8-9am or whenever the sun or loud people would wake you. Sit around the camp site till around 2-4pm depending when the band was on we wanted to see. Then come home have a bit of a wash down (no showers so it was all baby wipes or a wet washer) then off to bed around 12-3am.

On the Friday it reached an amazing 42degrees Celsius. This was the day we built a shelter from the sun using a tarpaulin, string and our towels to shade us. You couldn’t really sit under it but you could lay down which was good enough for us. We would only find out the temperature on the way to the festival ground each day. On the Saturday there was some rain but it was mostly nice and warm. It was amazing to have such hot weather. Only prob    lem was at the festival there wasn’t much shade so we had to cram into any shady spot we could. There was no going in any mosh pit for us that day.

On the last day we had a full day in Brussels to spend our time before our 8pm train home. We left the camp site at a comfortable time without any rushing around. We decided to leave our tent behind. It had served us well for Glastonbury (link to old post), [Kieran] Rock Werchter 08 and 2010. We said our good byes and to one of our well serviced sleeping bag which had seen the likes of Turkey (twice), Egypt (twice), the above festivals, and 10 other countries in Europe. Bidding our farewells we left and headed back into Brussels to be a tourist for the afternoon and lazily make our way home.

Some of the highlight bands we saw were: FAITHLESS, MUSE, LA ROUX, SKUNK ANANSIE, GREEN DAY, P!NK, FLORENCE + THE MACHINE, THE TEMPER TRAP, RAMMSTEIN, PEARL JAM, ARCADE FIRE, THEM CROOKED VULTURES, VAMPIRE WEEKEND, EMPIRE OF THE SUN

It was a wonderful way to spend a few days off work, sure there were no showers but you can live with that for some wonderful hot weather and sunshine. Along with great music and hanging with friends.

These are the summer days we love.

Monopoly Pub Crawl

Monopoly Pub Crawl

26^th June 2010

I (Glen) had always wanted to do the monopoly pub crawl in London. It has been over 3 years coming. Finally I decided to do it on Saturday June 26, 2010. What is a Monopoly pub crawl I hear you saying? Well it is a pub crawl where you go to every street on the monopoly board including the stations and have a drink (half pint and alcoholic). Obviously you leave out the power and water station along with GO and hopefully gaol (Jail in my version..grr) Many of the organised tours do not stop at all 26 board locations. Do to this I had given myself 2 challenges. 1 to get me and my group around all locations and 2 have a drink at each location (this equates to 13 pints)

We started our first drink at 11am and had our last one at 11:45pm. We did not follow the order of the board but we did make it to all 26 locations and have a drink. Towards the end as expected the metaphoric baton was starting to slip out of my hand as I had more and more drinks. Trying to find my way to the next pub was getting tougher and tougher. With only 3 pubs left Kieran stood up and took the baton and ran (what a champion helping us get drunk and complete our challenge). We got all the way to the last pub and in stupid London fashion pubs close at 12pm but serve last drinks at 11:30. It was 11:30 when we got to the last one! Not content with this Daniel, Craig and I continued on down the street till we found a pub open and serving this completed our 26pubs.

Along the way of the crawl we ran into many other groups doing it, some were dressed up with the whole group. I just wore a tuxedo. Another group was on a stag do and they were having shots or whole pints at the stops. Needless to say we didn’t see them at the end.

I would like to thank all those who attended and started with the first drink and made it all the way around. It was a great effort boys and if we do it again next time we know where to go and the streets to change the order of.

A Blind Mans Dinner

Dinner at Dans Le Noir

For my Glen’s birthday Kieran surprised him with dinner at Dans Le Noir which is a restaurant where you eat completely in the dark. You cannot see your meal or anything for that fact. You get a choice of, selecting a meal you know, or choose a surprise meal. There are 3 surprise meals to choose from. These are the green (vegetarian), red (meat) and white (anything fish, veggie, meat). Kieran chose the meat (red) and Glen chose the anything (or white). Along with the birthday meal we had surprise drinks. We took our champagne in the waiting area before our waiter came to seat us. The interesting thing about the wait staff is that they are all blind.

They were served by Karl (an Australian oddly enough from the central coast NSW). Entering the dinning area through double curtains to lock out all light they had to walk close together with hands on shoulders in a line. Lead to their seats and told where everything was, having a feel around to make sure they had it correctly located. Before going in we had to remove anything shiny or with a light feature, there went the watches and phones into a locker.

We were given our starters and not knowing what the food we were eating was we found it interesting to try and guess. Kieran started telling Glen what she had got and Glen was thinking he had the same meal, yes there was a salad but the meats were completely different. The starters were Pigeon breast salad for Kieran and a lobster and caviar salad for Glen. They both failed in guessing their starters. Next came the main meal, the meat was all severed pre cut so you could use the knife and fork if you wanted but it was not necessary to use them. Glen tried as best he could to remain civilised and use the cutlery while Kieran tucked straight in with fingers. Having guessed they were eating similar meals. Only Kieran chose correctly in her guess of steak. She had wild boar and sirloin steak. While Glen thought he also had steak turned out to be Kangaroo and Zebra. If you have any problems eating Zebra don’t worry it clearly tastes like steak but then again Glen thought lobster was chicken (by persuasion of the mind). Lastly was the dessert both had the same meal this time and both thought it was something like a peach. It turned out to be dates. Alas they will never make it on master chef for tasting food.

It was a wonderful experience and worth the money. To experience a meal as a blind person and to actually think about your food and knowing where you placed that glass of water or even pouring that glass!