delights

2006-07-02T14:02:00.000-12:00

The pics in this edition of the blog are in a really jumbled order, sorry! All the ones with snow are from the past 5 weeks. All others are previous to that - there are a couple which are two months old, from when we were in Melbourne.

This is the start of our recent road trip, at Lake Tekapo

This is the day the snow came, after our first night in Methven...we emerged from our beds into a dark, swirling white world of snow!

2006-07-02T13:22:00.000-12:00

Rory outside our ski-chalet home for two weeks in Methven, Canterbury (before the snow came down)

Largest chair in the world quest begins...

The lovely partying people from the hostel we stayed at for a couple of weeks in St Kilda, Melbourne

Feeding the ducks at the Botanical Gardens, Wellington

Two expert skiers at the top of Mount Hutt, Southern Alps...

Ski-ing close to the boundaries looking towards Mt Cook, with me in the background, Andre and Olivier in the foreground...
And Rory living it up, true ski-bum style at a frozen lake...

Singapore and Ozzie Delights

2006-05-26T00:19:00.000-12:00

we went to a croc farm - so Rory looks nervous

Me in true Steve Irwin style pose at Crystal Cascades south of Cairns.

The first of the Oz pics is me at Rex lookout, in out first week, it's up by Cairns, really tropical and yummy,

Jetsetting off from Changi Airport on our Ozzie adventure!

Singapore Night Zoo

Melons and Rors on their Travels....

2006-05-25T08:35:00.000-12:00

then us with some friends from our hostel in Singapore, drinking Singapore slings in the Raffles Hotel (mmm!)

Next is Rory with a very large snake on sentosa island

Helen finds her long lost sisters!

The photos go back to when we were in Melaka

2006-05-24T15:47:00.000-12:00

Some pictures of our adventures since we arrived in Australia...they're not in any particular order...a couple here of Rory, one at Bells Beach, a big surf beach on the great ocean road (in the fleece)

...and one in the sun, at Byron Bay.

This is the Brisbane skyline

Driving through the Glasshouse Mountains, a flowery walk in Brisbane, and a stop we made in the van to look at this nice beach, which was v winday as you can tell from our hairstyles

Jack, Kris and Leah at home

2006-04-20T07:57:00.000-12:00

hope all is well down under post u few photos of the main man do nt b spendin 2 much in the casino hope ur not in a vw cause that would nt b fair hope u 2 r havin a ball and do nt eat 2 many yabbies!!

Philly and Barbie and familydelights

2006-04-15T02:51:00.000-12:00

Hi, hope you are able to see the baby, your new niece or nephew,unfortunately not too clear, i am trying to persuade Kels and Dunc, that the best possible name for a girl, given that the surname is Angus, could be Barbara, but i dont think they are too conviced about that, as you will see from the hysterical laughter in the pics.

Philly has popped over to see me, its Easter, so have now had a lesson on blogging, its not too bad.

We are presenting a trophy on 29th April, The Lloyd McCall trophy for the young player of the year, in Armagh and quite a lot of people are travelling to that, so will make sure you have lots of pics of the evening, and next year you will be presenting it,

Hope you dont think that Philly and i have been drinking, only tea, dont know why we look so strange, maybe its just normal for us. Kels and Dunc have just gone to Cheshire, everyone is thrilled about the baby.

Robin is coming here tomorrow, to go and see John, Perj and Kate plus Graham are here for lunch, so busy day, and on Monday we are off to the Point to Point, then back to work.

That was Barbie, this is Ken. No not really it's actually Philly. Although my middle name could be Ken. I suppose. Hope you like the pictures - strange that Barbie and I look so drunk. We're really not! Juat tucking into an Easter egg and having are 700th cup of tea! Much love to you both and speak soon x x

not drunk, just tea
think we bored Duncs to sleep!
Philly was quite shocked that Barbara's hand was in such a strange position
Gynacology - Philly's new career change.
Baby in night vision
"Barbara Angus" has a lovely ring to it, don't you think Duncan?

Your sister looking pretty

Oxford Delights

2006-04-10T10:02:00.000-12:00

Mj does Oxford. Em and I went to visit Stacey, my housemate from Berlin. This club was just like Echoes at the end of term! I was predominantly wearing brown leather winkle-pickers and Em black ballet shoes, as documented here. I especially love the photo of everybody dancing to "where is my mind?" where Stacey is looking in her handbag. It wasn't an entirely impossible notion after the amount of Guinness she had put away. Bless.

Work Delights

2006-03-31T00:24:00.000-12:00

"Those are a few of my favourite things"

At meeting in Kingston with students, Philly discovered that she wasn't allowed to do any of the things she liked...

"Whoops Bunny Bunny Whoops"
Of a Friday I like to dress up to boost morale.

"Executive Stress"
As you can see I manage to do this whilst holding down a high powered VERY important job.

"Oops up side your head"
Sometimes i lose my head ...

"Who Framed Philly Rabbit?"
And sometimes the MD of Haymarket comes to visit at the most inappropriate of moments...

Humid Delights

2006-03-23T01:19:00.000-12:00

I dont know what order they'll appear on your screen.. the ones in silly hats are at Fort Cornwallis, Georgetown, Penang, the ones of us up various towers are in Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers and the Planetarium (one of Rory looking through goggles) One from Mars is obv from Mars (we had to get v expensive Visas for there you know) The one where we're really little and there's a white building is Merdaka Square in KL an Indian tourist took it). The ones at the F1 are at the F1, obv (Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang)

Overdue Delights

2006-03-09T17:06:00.000-12:00

Many a fresh delight to behold! Here are a few piccies, in reverse order, of our adventures of the past few weeks...

Here's Rory in a street bar in Chaweng on Koh Samui...

Does this one need an explanation?

Khao San Road, Kwang Si Waterfalls near Luang Prabang in Laos,
and on our balcony in Vientiane, Laos...

Rory on the porch of our riverside hut in Vang Vieng, Norther Laos...and the view he was looking at...we spent a gorgeous day floating down the river here on our big rubber rings

The amazingly beatiful Angor Wat...

Lelu delights

2006-02-26T23:43:00.000-12:00

Dearest Helen and Rory,

As requested, please find enclosed the first of your installments of England's factory delights. They come from Louise and are of: Her trip to Tallin with Joe, one of Mark being a rock star at his last gig in Kentish Town venue The Bull and Gate, and of her recent trip to Oxford.

No tip juice involved here.

Coming soon.... Mike and Adam.... Mark rocks the world.... Abi and Chris show us how delightfully factory based the midlands are... Philly takes some weird shots of London and behaves with wanton abandonment...

2006-02-22T16:14:00.000-12:00

Phew! Have found an excellent internet cafe in Vientiane, which by the way is the most gorgeous city imaginable - quite quiet but really friendly and full of old french colonial and art-deco style buildings...

This on the left is Saigon in the middle of pre-Tet frenzy; everyone madly buying things and strapping them to the backs of motos.

We left Saigon for Phnom Penh and spent ages crossing the border, but this was the sunset the welcomed us when we arrived. Also a bird sculpture made of guns, which sums up the Cambodian attituse to their recent past....

This was the view from the guesthouse roof bar in Phnom Penh, over the salubrious prime real-estate area near the Boeng Kak Lake...(just out of shot, a swarm of murderous mosquitos with steel teeth). We came back to PP a few times cos getting to other parts of the country necessitates a return to the capital, so we went to lots of the 'sights' - the Russian Market, Wat Phnom, the Silver Palace, etc. Also went to the terribly said Choeng Ek killing fields, which was an intense, sad experience.

After PP we deserved a bit of beachiness! So headed to Sihanoukville, where we spent days and days lazing on Serendipity Beach....aaah. An lying in bed ill after eating dadgy barbeque. Euch.

It took nearly 2 weeks to tear ourselves away - amazing seafood, lovely guesthouse 2mins from the beach, zooming about on rented motos...then on to Siem Reap to see Angkot Wat.

Cambodia, Laos

2006-02-18T17:42:00.000-12:00

Haven't managed to update this for ages, so have been trying to upload a few recent piccies from Siem Reap and Phnom Penh up to Savannakhet in Laos. Loads are missing from Saigon and the beach in Cambodia...will have to put those on soon. The computer here will not work so I promise photos soon!

Since Dalat we've been to Mui Ne and Saigon in Vietnam, and Sinhanoukville, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia; in the last couple of days we've come into Laos through an International Border Checkpoint in a bamboo hut by a river and stayed on Don Det, one of the 1000 Islands on the Mekong in southern Laos. At the moment we're in Savannakhet, a really tiny, old fashioned kind of town, on our way to Vientiane in the north of the country, hopefully to do a bit a trekking and exploring. Cutting a long story short, but all will be revealed when we manage to find a computer able to do pictures!

2006-01-21T22:18:00.000-12:00

Well lots has been going on since the last mail and I'm testing this blog to see how it turns out (managed to sort the order of things, but bear with, if it's no good will return to the more conventional emails...)

(givin you a feel for the Vietnam spirit)

Marble Mountains

View from the bus from Hue to Hoi An, through the marble mountains...

Hoi An

Our illustrious tailor in Hoi An (NewBestFriend).

Typical Hoi An scene.

Nha Trang

Since leaving Hanoi we have had two major bus journeys taking us via Nha Trang (pics above and below) and on to the current Dalat. The 1st journey was overnight for about 13 hours and I'm not going to lie, it was the pits, and I had it easy as I managed to get two seats to myself ;) Managed to catch some zzz's and arrive in Nha Trang (a pretty cosmo city with a nice beach).Swimming off Nha Trang with islands in the distance...

We took a morning out of our busy beach lazing sessions to teach English to the local kids. Some of the class (about 30 other kids didn't manage to squeeze themselves into the piccie)

Dalat

Up in the central highlands, one of the 'better off' places we have visited, they have lush soils and are growing very profitable crops, Tea, Coffee, Silk (the worms are kinda gross), Orchids, Roses and every imaginable vegetable.

From this, to a lovely silk dress a la Hoi An.

The 'Crazy House' in Dalat, one of many bizarre buildings designed by a lady architect with a wild imagination! Dalat's pretty wealthy so there's lots of free running design going on...

Earlier today in Dalat - we were at Church on a Sunday!

Elephant Falls in Dalat...the path down was pretty scary after a couple of rice wines! Spot the path among the rocks...

No one promised us a rose garden...but we got one; each individual bloom goes for 50,000d (about 3 dollars) in Saigon and Japan.

An, one of our guides, showing us the lush mountain farms and the Lady Mountains in the background

Dalat Market Street (a bit different from Ashby!)

Well that's it for now, hope that you enjoyed the show, will be back and forth between this blog and long e-mail speils so check both...

Lots of hugs and kisses

Rory and Helen.

Photos

2006-01-11T04:50:00.000-12:00

2006-01-09T00:10:00.000-12:00

Sooo, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Hanoi with some Aussie mates,
having returned from our 3 day trip round the islands at Ha Long Bay. We
started on saturday morning early early with a bus ride out through the
provinces to HaiPhong, the harbour town. The bus ride was amazing in itself
- vietnamese towns consist of a dusty strip of shopfronts splilling goods
and wares onto the street, and then miles of flat field and rice paddies
growing all manner of delicate looking herbs and rice which ladies in
conical hats wade through ankle-deep all day. Other ladies spend all morning
peeling veggies for lunch and watch the world go by- the peeling is an art
in itself...we jumped on a junk boat with the rest of the people we were
with - one other Brit, four Aussies, a Finnish girl, two Swiss and two
Germans, wrapped ourselves up warm (it was coooold, but Swanage summers
prepared me for that!) and watched the spectacular scenery glide past while
sipping beers and waiting for our dinner! Rors and I had dinner with the
Germans, a middle-aged couple, the wife who thought singing was 'guut and
vunderful for everyone' and the guy who was a stonemason and looked like he
could fight a bear. We slept on the boat and woke up in a cove surrounded by
rocky islands, the put-putted over to Cat Ba island, the largest inhabited
one in the bay. It's a fishing village that has only had power for 6 years
but boy, they've put it to good use with neon palm trees...We sailed around
the local islands, including Monkey island where we met some monkeys and
climbed a sharp, rocky escarpment to the top - you should have seen our
faces when our viet guide Hieu told us we had to go back down the way we had
come! Today we've got back to Hanoi; it's about 7pm and we're on a 11pm
night train down to Hue, which is in Central Vietnam. Am strangely looking
forward to the journey.

One special thing that happened before we left for Ha Long which I must tell
you about - Rory needed a haircut so we went to 'haircut alley' in Hanoi and
selected a likely looking salon (when I say salon I mean an open front room
with a couple of blow-driers in it) Three ladies in there, we sign-languaged
haircut and Rory was put in a chair, swathed in robes and shorn with a pair
of huge, rusty scissors while the remianing 2 ladies patted my hand, sat
next to me conspiratorially, then took pictures of me on their phones - they
think I'm 'veery beeootifool' which is quite amusing...one lady then caleed
her Husband on her phone and held the phone to our ears, laughing like a
hyena and chanting 'I-love-you-I-want-you' which was just about the only
english she knew(!) It was honestly the funniest thing ever, Rory sitting
there perilously under these huge shears while the rest of us bellowed and
guffawed behind him. Hairdressers must be the same breed the world over!

Brrrrr

2005-12-28T07:20:00.000-12:00

Hearty walking

2005-12-28T07:17:00.000-12:00

Calke continued

2005-12-28T07:14:00.000-12:00

I particularly like the shitty snowman, with sheep droppings intertwined cleverly into his very being.

Calke Abbey, December 28th 2005

2005-12-28T07:09:00.000-12:00

loughborough delights the juice continues

2005-12-28T07:06:00.000-12:00

loughborough delights

2005-12-28T06:53:00.000-12:00

A sample of all that is simply Tip juice-esque about Loughborough. Peacocks, the great shopping mecca. Baobab the pretentious (but laden with massive bagels) cafe.