Nate's first snow. In October!

Here's a photo of the house across the road with snow on the roof. And it's not even winter yet! Bring on a white Christmas!!And a car across the street too.


I know, I know, it's not much snow, but hey, it's the first snow I've ever seen in real life, so give me a break, huh?

Flying with Phil

Last weekend, Laura and I journeyed to Oxford. Why? I hear you ask. Well, one of my old school 'chums' has a share in a plane-owning syndicate. A couple of weeks ago he offered to take us for a day out to the Isle of Wight. He did, and here's some photos of our grand day out.

Phil and I with the Robin 400. What a cute little plane huh?

An aerial view of Oxford.
(I'm pretty sure that's Christ Church near the bottom of the pic, just right of the wing.)

The girls in the backseat, Laura and Philippa

This is an action shot of me flying.

Phil and I coming back from our paddle in the ocean.

A view looking out over Bembridge Airfield.

Look! It's Laura!

As you can see, visibility was a little bit on the poor side at times.

The needles.

The day after, Phil and Philippa showed us around a few more of Oxford's colleges (I may post about that later) to wrap up what was a fantastic weekend.

London's Parks

We've been pretty lucky with the weather for the last two weekends (i won't mention this weekend!) so we've made an effort to go out and visit some of the parks and gardens mentioned in the guidebooks. Here's a pic of Nate at Hampstead Heath. It's a huge park that's actually quite near us but proved almost impossible to get to due to rail closures. haha. People go out here to fly kites, ride bikes, picnic and apparently they even swim in some of the ponds there. Those crazy English people! It's on a hill so you can see the city skyline through the haze:)

We also went to check out the speakers' corner in Hyde Park which was described on the timeout website as "Crackpots talking nonsense". There were probably about 8 speakers in different locations and plenty of people hanging around to 'debate' what they had to say.

There was even someone giving out free hugs if you wanted one (which quite a few people did).

We then walked through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens. I'm not sure which one we're officially in here but this is a pic of some crazy man swimming in the lake. The water was freezing and not to mention filthy! We saw someone letting their child go in there too.

Here's a picture of Nathanael at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. Which is kind of a big circular water feature with flowing water. It's actually quite cool. The sign says that you're not allowed in it, but there was at least 30 children and a number of adults paddling in the (freezing) water.

And here's a picture of me with the Peter Pan statue. Hooray for Peter Pan:)

The Globe- well, the new one anyway.

Last Wednesday I fulfilled one of my great dreams; seeing a Shakespearean play in a Shakespearean theatre. Shakespeare's Globe, as it is called, is a faithful reconstruction of the Bard's own playhouse, not on its original location, but certainly very, very close. We even got to experience the authentic pit experience; the five pound 'groundling' tickets are standing room only, but represent fantastic value.

Unfortunately we thought we shouldn't take a camera, because it is theatre and all and because of that there's no photos. Worse than that though, before the show started everyone but us was taking photos, meaning we were kicking ourselves for not bringing at least Laura's little point-and-shoot. However, in an effort to entertain you our dear readers (if anyone is still reading) I have shamelessly plagiarised a promotional image for the play and pasted it here.


Needless to say it was a super production with a python-esque French doctor, a Basil Fawlty-like Ford and a very jolly Falstaff. Good times all round :-)