Here are some photos of the very messy night:

Lyndas Party

Sister Jenny is hosting Christmas this year so we visited her at the farm to check out Christmas dinner.

One of these lucky lambs will take pride of place on the revolving spit:

Its not quite a turkey, but is totally home grown and way tastier:

These guys wont quite make it for this years dinner, but we got a whole year to fatten them up:

Jenny offered us some eggs laid fresh that morning, but it seemed a bit weird eating eggs straight from the chickens bum. We prefer our eggs from the supermarket.

Lucky for this guy we aren’t French:

Our last few long haul flights have been in premium economy or business class so we were wondering how we would cope in the cattle class on a busy flight.

As it was, it wasn’t too bad, so I have compiled a list of the advantages of flying economy.

1. They don’t ply you full of alcohol before take-off like the upper classes, so you don’t have a raging hangover by the time you reach Hong Kong.

2. The arm rest lifts up so I could stretch my legs out across Mike (which was good until he pushes me off and I fall down and get wedged between the crack)

3. The price is about half that of premium economy and a quarter that of business class.

4. After your meal you can just fall asleep, whereas in business class you have to get up and rearrange your seat into a flatbed. What a pain in the arse that is!

5. There seems to be less queues for the toilets (probably due to less alcohol)

6. On many occasions on empty flights we have had the middle four rows to ourselves and sometimes a row each to spread out and sleep. Unfortunately this is unlikely during the busy Christmas period.

7. Wine and champagne are served in plastic cups, so it tastes really bad and you don’t drink as much, therefore feeling much fresher after a 24 hour flight.

We decided to leave the house and join the masses of people who also decided to leave their houses to watch the free fireworks display in Poole Harbour.

It was our first attempt at fireworks photos and I think some are pretty good. Mike gets all the credit for the photos (though it is my camera and it was my idea).

Click on the link to view all the photos:

Fireworks Photos

Last weekend we loaded up our £400 car with Mich and Ems and headed up to Banbury to visit Matt and Sonia. We weren’t sure if our car would make it but it seemed to go ok. On the Saturday we caught the train into Oxford for some sightseeing.

Here is a song we wrote, sung to the tune of “Ride a Cock Horse”

Drive an old bomb to Banbury Cross
To see Matt and Sonia and drink lots and lots
Rings on our fingers and beers in our hands
Drunk and disorderly in Oxfordland

Anyway, here are a few photos of the weekend:

Oxford Photos

We have managed to survive two weeks on the Liver Cleansing Diet. That means no alcohol, red meat, dairy or processed foods. We are now onto phase two, which means as well as the above we cant have chicken or eggs. Luckily fish is still allowed.

I haven’t lost any weight on the scales, which is quite frustrating, but I have lost 2% body fat, so that is a big plus.

I am starting back with my trainer tomorrow, so I expect the weight to drop off me from now on.

I’m guessing no one is reading the blog now our travels have finished and Mum and Dads computer is broke, so I can rattle on about a load of poo (which by the way, hasn’t been quite right since I started the diet). I think/hope it’s the high fibre and seeds that are causing the odd texture. I think Mike is having odd ones too.

Anyway, all is good in the land of UK. It’s quite nice not having to worry about where to go, where to camp and if the bears going to eat us in our sleep.

I saw in the news that the Kawarau Jet in Queenstown has crashed.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10534245

I must say I am not surprised. We went on the Kawarau jet in Dec 2006 and it was dodgy then.

Here is the blog I wrote at that time.

Jetboating Blog from December 2006

We took the Kawarau jet boat ride as it was based in the middle of Queenstown and had a mixture of lake and rapids. As we had both been jetboating before the 360s didn’t really scare us, but it was fun laughing at the other people screaming. And the driver did manage to drench us, it was freezing.

The scariest bit was on the rapids when we did a 360 and ran aground. It was lucky we didn’t tip over. The driver couldn’t get the boat started again. It kept sucking up stones into the jet. Meanwhile we are drifting out of control on the rapids. There is silence in the boat. I am not enjoying this one bit. Finally the driver had to drift out into deeper water and thank god he managed to get it started. I must say I lost all faith in his abilities after this and the rest of the ride wasn’t so enjoyable.

He commented that the river wasn’t as low last week when he took a tour out. Surely they should check out the state of the river before taking people out.

We are finally back in our flat. The tenants left the place a bit grubby, so they are paying Mike to clean it. At least they didnt trash the place.

We are still waiting to get broadband on. In the meantime we are using a poxy mobile broadband thingy which seems to be really slow. It may be just poor reception where we are.

We have just completed day 4 of the liver cleansing diet and haven’t strayed yet. Only 52 days to go.

Mike has a job interview next Tuesday. I am trying to avoid work and agents. I dont think I could cope with work this soon after our long holiday.