Bristol By Night

Note don’t do this by yourself, at least on the first time around.

Lisa, Jeanne and I all went out for beers, the typical English thing to do (every night), up in Clifton last night. Clifton is about midway between where Jeanne, Lisa and I live so it was a good meeting point. We walked for a really long time trying to find somewhere that looked well not so upscale. We finally found a pub that didn’t look too “posh” for us to go in and decided that it was about time that we sit. Lisa’s first comment as we were walking in the front door was, “wow it’s mostly guys…” lol. For me, working in a bar for the time that I did, it was no big surprise that it would filled with mostly boys. It was a nice semi-quiet place for us to all have a beer, sit, and talk, which is precisely what we did. Lisa bought the first round and then from there Jeanne and then myself. I apparently impressed the Bartender (woman) by walking up with all our glasses in hand at the same time and then carrying 3 full ones back to the table. I guess people don’t normally clean up after themselves ‘cuz she made some comment about how that was so nice and that they could tell I had worked in a bar :0). We closed the place down, although that is not hard when they close the Pubs around here at 11 PM… why I don’t know but supposedly the clubs stay open until 3 and 4 AM. Lisa, Jeanne and I, as a group decided that we really aren’t clubbing kind of people so, I guess we will just have to find another place to go if we want to stay out later than 11, which we ended up being out much later than that anyways.

Lisa and I decided that we were going to walk Jeanne home, it being now 11:30 and she wasn’t real sure how to get home from Clifton. So we dropped her off at about midnight and figured out how to get ourselves home, sort of. Lisa and I headed out from Jeanne’s and we doing pretty good staying on the set out route and then… well we came to a crossroads and didn’t really know where we were anymore. Luckily, this nice young kid named Dan was walking home as well (he had to go all the way to Ashton…which is a few miles past where Lisa and I had to go, yikes!) But, Dan walked us back to the city centre and got us back safe. I don’t care if you are big, small, whatever, if you are a guy and it is really late and I am alone or with one or two other girls, your presence is enough to make me feel A LOT better! Anyway, the story ends that Lisa and I got home very safely but decided if that is way that Jeanne walks home alone….that we will just put her in a taxi or a bus. Even Dan said that it wasn’t a nice area, and I am going to go with that he would know having, as he said he had lived in and around Bristol his whole life (all 16 to 18 years of it). So, fun times and good experiences.

Went out again tonight, although Jeanne didn’t join Lisa and me until a little later because she wasn’t feeling all that well. I really hope that she gets better soon. I would hate it to be my third day in a new country and be sick already. Bristol really comes alive on Friday nights! Everyone comes out and starts enjoying their weekends early. Lisa and I really aren’t for clubbing but Bristol really seems to have a lively club scene. Anyways, we made our way up to campus for the new postgraduate welcome party, held at one of I guess several bars on campus and immediately decided that everyone, when they go to these type of functions clings on the nearest person and begins talking. Lol So Lisa and I spent the first hour or so just observing and commenting on people and figured that if we left even a little room at our table open then people would probably come over and join us. Well Jeanne showed up a little while later and Lisa was right! We set a bit further apart and then people began to flood over to our table lol. Way to go Lisa for the astute observation about human movement in close settings heheh I guess that it is rather fitting since she is doing her post grad work in sociology. Anyways, we met some new people and in general had a lovely time but decided to call it an early night since we had been out sooo late last night (Jeanne left early to go home and sleep, which I think was a very smart move on her part). So Lisa and our new friend who also lives in Lisa’s building named Emily and I forded the flooded streets of this rather nice (by English standards) night and made it home with relative ease. Just in time for me to finish up this blog that I began this morning for all of you to read.

To conclude I hope that you all have a fabulous finish to your day. I love you lots and I am very sorry to have missed talking with some of you yesterday :0( but thankfully, I had more luck tonight. Ta Ta.

Nada...

No blog today, nothing really to report outside that I went to IKEA, rode the bus and opened a checking account. Hopefully I will have more to share tomorrow. Talk to you all soon I hope. Goodnight!

Tour, This way please..

Two things, quickly that I must remedy from my observations on British fashion yesterday; one, is that when it rains girls wear whatever shoes they feel like. This includes sneakers, running shoes, high heels, boots, etc. Secondly, that girls, at least when it rains, wear pretty much anything from jeans (all styles not just skinny jeans, though skinny jeans still seem to be the most popular among the 15-30 something’s) to cords, which are not as much as a faux pas as I had thought, saw them in many of the stores today on their winter clothing racks.

So now that that is taken care of and set to right I will start the telling of my story from today. I started out getting up a bit earlier this morning, 9 AM instead of 10 or 11 lol, and went out in quest of getting to IKEA. I made it all the way to the bus stop that I needed to only t have it starte to rain. The prospect of carrying arms full of stuff back to my closet from the bus stop at Cabot Circus (a 15 minute walk from my cupboard), with an umbrella in one and everything else in the other, didn’t sound like a “jolly good time” to me. So I opted out of the IKEA trip, again, and headed to Lloyd’s bank to open up an UK bank account, also on my list of things to do today.

I sat in the bank for, I would say nearly an hour until it was finally my turn in the queue, only to find that another woman, who had just walked in, had an appointment and was selected to go in front of me. So the very nice banker man, guy, gentlemen told me that I could make an appointment and come back tomorrow. So, I now have an appointment to come back tomorrow at 11 am , which means that I can’t hit the snooze button on my phone 50 times like I have been for the past week. (Side note: OMG!!!! I HAVE BEEN HERE ALMOST A WHOLE WEEK ALREADY!!!! 50 weeks left folks! If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is.) Anyways, I then headed back home, making a short stop off at the Tesco Express to pickup some milk and water (almost out of mine from the first go) and found some yummy looking chocolate filled crepes to have for breakfast, instead of cereal tomorrow morning. ( I know you are jealous Kristin!) Hurray! for something different. (btw the kid in the next flat over from me is playing Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches, for anyone who knows who that band is lol at least they have good taste in music).

Got home, ate some lunch, made sure I knew where the Income Office (University Cashiers) was, because I had gotten an e-mail saying that I needed to come in and countersign my Stafford Loan checks that had come in. I made the monstrous trek up park street (which is like a S.F. city hill that I will be walking up everyday to get to class, oy!) to the University. It took me a little while to find the entrance to the building, because they know that I am coming and I swear purposely put them around what I would consider the back side of the building so I look really goofy walking around the whole building in search of the front door. Someone would have a lot of fun watching videos of me trying to find things cuz I really get hopelessly turned around and generally feel like a dog chasing its tail trying to find things) Thanks to Google Maps and being able to see the street view to know exactly what I am going to see when I get to places, I found the building relatively easily, again though the entrance...not so much. From there it was on the Student Union building, which is not really all that close to the rest of what is considered the main campus. Mind you, main campus here is nothing like what we are used to but I will apprise you of that at a later date (apparently they have hidden some of the university departments in housing along the street just to screw with us, kind isn't it? lol).

Went up to the International Student Office, where I went the day before yesterday, and lounged about in there for about an hour waiting for the campus tour to start. I ended up talking to one of the International Student Ambassadors, local university students that take care of all of us foreigners, for about 30 minutes. Really, nice guy. Initially looked at me and didn’t think that I was really American. He said, “I never would have guessed you were American.” I think that he was expecting Irish or something. He himself was a Russian Brit, so, not sure what that was about out side of him having what I consider a funny version of a Brit accent. I haven’t decided whether I like not looking like an American or not. I guess it’s good that I blend into the local scenery quite well but kind of sad that I don’t look like I am from my own home country, though, honestly, what does an American look like? We are so diverse and such a melding pot of things it is really hard to say what an American looks like or doesn’t look like, so? Anyways, so the tour finally came around and I meet two very nice girls. One is from France/Germany (Heidelberg for Miss Dvina, since you know where that is) named Jeanne, and the other was a girl from Norway named Lisa. The three of us sort of stuck together during the tour and then decided to go grab coffee afterwards. Then we all went to dinner at a local Italian restaurant, kind of expensive but I am sure that we will find cheaper places in the future. They are both very cool and Lisa was nice enough to offer to take Jeanne and me to IKEA tomorrow (hurray I am finally going to make it IKEA J) since she had already been there. So, that was my day, didn’t do too much but still was rather eventful and I finally have people to do things with, so that is nice, though neither live in my building. I think that we are all going to go on the city bus tour on Saturday, hosted by the International Student Office and we were also talking about going out and seeing the castle just outside the city of Bristol itself. So, I guess that might be on tap for Friday, but we’ll see.

Well that’s all from me for today. I hope that you all have had a really nice morning and a good afternoon. Apparently, I am now the Irish American girl lol thanks to Jeanne and Lisa. So that’s all folks, ‘night and miss you all very much! Irish American out!

Fashion...Please, that's not fashion

Notes on English style

As long as you don’t have any you’re set! Ladies for you the fashion of Bristol and I am going to assume, though we all know what that can lead to , the rest of England is as follows: skinny jeans or black leggings with a long shirt or normal sized sweater; colours, styles, and patterns don’t matter, at all. Leggings are also worn under skirts, length is knee or above, style makes absolutely no difference. I have seen the leggings or tights worn with too short of skirts, pleated skirts, high fashion type skirts, so in that vein anything is acceptable. Things that are NOT in fashion for you ladies are bootleg or wider jeans, cords (made that mistake earlier today..oopse), or anything that we would probably think of as being anything remotely comfortable. Shoes must be either all stars, flats, UGu’s or boots. Boots and flats should be black if it can be helped other than that I have seen light brown (tan) boots and some flats in blue but no other colours. High heels are a must if you are not in any of the above, which if you are me means trouble (see previous blog). Headgear for women… haven’t seen much if any of that. Can’t say that there is really any call for it since it is not really cold out here as of yet. Nevertheless, from what I have seen in the stores, it will be knit beanies and foaux fur earmuffs. Lovely.

Gents for you pretty much anything goes; although, almost all of the guys closes are done in an emo-rock or euro-trash style. So as long as you look like you got hit by the emo bus or run over by a vespa riding Italian you're golden! Jeans or pants of any wash are good, which includes neon colours, oy! BUT must be TIGHT fitting and worn just below your hips with a shirt or sweater, or both, long enough to cover the pants line. Shoes for you, boys, range from flip-flops to dress shoes; no style or colour, in particular, is required (see picture above). Head gear is very common, so an emo- beanie or knit beanie are regularly seen in conjunction with your outfits, though, again it is not cold here yet and there is absolutely no call of them.

And please, don't get me started on the hair cuts! Honestly, most of the boys look like the used hair trimmers in the dark and just went with it. Not so good, no not so good at all. (Disclaimer is that there are some who are very cute and cleaner cut, so they are not a loss on the whole. And Rachel I can now verify that there is at least one who would meet with your previous question ;0)

Went into Primark, not sure that we have a comparable store in the states. I guess it is sort of like a Macy’s sized Forever 21, but with better quality things. They had some very nice wool blend coats for about the $50 to $70 dollar mark, which isn’t bad considering that the ones I saw the other day at Debenhams’s were $100 plus dollar and some were even over 100 GBP, which would make them around $200 dollars. I take back what I said the other day about Debenhams’s being like a Macy’s, I actually think that it is more like a Nordstrom’s but the household section makes it hard to place. So, let’s just go with its somewhere in between those two.

Didn’t get much done today. I got some of the things, though not all of them, that I needed for next weeks' trip into Exmoor. I still need waterproof hiking boots or Wellies, not sure which yet. The waterproof hiking boots that I found at Millet’s, which is actually somewhat like a really small REI, were ₤54.99, which is about $94 or $95. A lot more than I wanted to spend, so I thought that if I could find them somewhere else, I should try looking before I go and spend that much on them.

At the request of some of the readers that will be the extent of my writing today. I have been asked to attempt to shorten the blogs because I make people feel excessively worn out and in need of a nap due to my wordiness. To those who feel this way let me extend my sincerest apologies and express the hope that this fact will not, in the future endeavours to read my blog, dissuade you. I greatly enjoy your attention to my unremarkable daily life events and would be most sad if you were to forgo the experience due to my inability to find a way to put things in shorter note. (hehehhhehe) Have an AWESOME MORNING!

Eploring...sorta

Found Chap Stick!!!! I know that sounds somewhat silly to be overly excited about finding chap stick but really I am so pleased that it warrants the expression of glee, as far as I am concerned. I also found scrubby pads for cleaning dishes, hurray, and contact solution, which is about twice as expensive here as it is back home. Other than that, I had a pretty relaxed day. I got up late once again...oopse.

The picture that I posted is of St. Augustine's Parade. It is the main street that I cross every day to get to The Mall. In fact you can see my street quite well from this picture. Denmark Street is at the top just to the left of the main road. My building is the big white one that sticks up. So now you can picture me walking across it whenever I talk about going to Tesco or The Mall or Cabot Circus (an extension of the mall, and yes they really do have a circus there).

I have decided that I like Tesco Metro better than the other grocery stores that I have found so far (there are 4 versions of Tesco and I am sure that I would love Tesco or Tesco Superstore but we don't have one of those close by. I think in those instances they are more like Costco's and tend to hang out on the outskirts of town). Things are a bit more organized and easier to find the Tesco Metro than in the Sainsbury's or Tesco Express; I still need to try the Co-Op though. I decided that I am going to have to make a trip out to IKEA to get pots and pans, because the ones that I found at a store called Debenhams’s, which is similar to a Macy's, were really really expensive, as are the ones at Macy's. So, IKEA it is and no luck with the foamy mattress pad either. I did find one that was one of those memory foam ones but it was hugely expensive so that was "right out" as they say.

Maybe if I get up earlier tomorrow I will make it out to IKEA. It is far to far to walk, which kind of sucks but I guess the bus isn't that bad, minus that I don't have a student bus card and have no idea how much it costs.....suppose that is what the internet is for :0) Yet again, though, I can only buy what I can carry home from the bus stop which is at The Mall, about .35 miles home. not too far but still, can you imagine me trying to carry about 6 pots and pans, a mattress pad, and a bathmat .35 miles? It would look kind of funny.

I was asked by a good friend recently about the boys and whether I had found one that I would want to run off into the rainy distance with yet. I have comments about that subject that round out to no but that there is hope for them yet lol. If you would like to hear the comments about this subject, you should e-mail me and I will personally fill you in on my assessment of the Bristol-ian populous.

No rain again to day :0) guess someone up stairs is looking out for me and knows that it would be very difficult for me to do all this walking and running around if it were raining outside and so has decided to hold off on the usual English waterworks for a bit. I hope that, though I think that the chances are only getting slimmer, the weather will hold for a few more days so that I can finish my errands and not have to worry about carrying an umbrella in addition to shopping bags.

Some further notes on Bristol are as follows. Having walked around Bristol for about the last three days I have decided that it, in topography, is a combination of San Francisco (loads of rather steep hills) and Berkeley (based on the shops, assortment of people, ran into a drunk Irishman today lol he was singing, and that you have to walk everywhere). I think that I have decided against getting a bike. Almost everything that I need is within walking distance and trying to navigate traffic on a bicycle I think would be a little more than I am up to at this point, though I might change my mind on this later. Bristol is really an interesting city from what I have seen so far. It is as diverse in population as any of our cities and the number of shops and cafes make it a cool place. I have never seen so many shoe shops in my life. So ladies if you like to go shoe shopping...then Bristol is your city. I love boots myself and there is no shortage of those either! I saw an Urban Outfitters today at The Mall, just another touch of the good ol'US of A. What I would very much like to know is how the girls here walk everywhere in high heels?! Seriously, it’s crazy! I saw some girl roll her ankle walking up a hill in wedges today and I just walked behind her thinking 'well, why would you wear those shoes to walk in?' it's just silliness. Ahh th price of fashion, but I prefer looking different in my Simple Shoe and not having a busted ankle or leg, thanks.

Other than that nothing much to report from my end today. I made it up to campus today. Not much like our campuses. The buildings are not very distinctive and it would be remarkably easy to walk right past them and not know that you had even missed it, which I almost did but the college-aged misfits out front and the kid with the remarkably large business book sort of gave it away. I think I might go on a tour of the campus with the international student centre tomorrow afternoon at 4, so if I am not on Skype to talk to you all then that is probably where I have gone off to. I think I will also chance a meeting with more locals (who thus far have been very pleasant) and go find a GOOD cup of coffee. The instant stuff that they sell in the stores is...well it’s not good and definitely not like home at all. So hopefully tomorrow will be full of things to report to you. Hope you are all doing really well and Thank you for your positive responses and influence for the blog! It is really great to hear from you and know what you think about it all. 'Til tomorrow then!

Where's the chap stick?

Day 2 is turning out to be just about the same as day one. Nothing much eventful has happened, though I am not going to say that it is such a bad thing, since eventful can be not so hot. I woke up much later than I had intended this morning. I was going to try and get a head start on the morning but apparently hit my alarm one too many times and finally got out of bed sometime around 11 am. Oopse! Once I was dressed and finally headed out of my cupboard it was about 12. Prior to leaving I checked to make sure that the places that I wanted to go were actually open today, since it is Sunday and on previous travels I have found that, country depending of course, almost everything is closed on Sunday (remember Rome mom?). That, however, is not the case here in England; most things are open but open much later than usual hours. For example, Borders and Sainsbury's don't open until after 12 or close around 5 instead of 7 or 9, so it is a good thing that I didn't leave the house until I did.

I find England much more like home than I had intended, with the exception that I have a hard time finding simple things like Kitchen sponges and chap stick. Honestly, what do they do use their hands and have constantly dry lips, that is so not going to work for me. But! I have a remedy for the Chap Stick, and no Emery it does not have anything to do with buying a pair of chaps. If I strike out again tomorrow at the drug store around the corner I will just find some Vaseline and use that; far less tasty or glamorous but if it keeps my lips from being dry it will do nicely. Of course I have yet to see any of that either...hmm could be a problematic solution.

I found a Sainsbury's, which is like a Raley's, but it was very small. I am getting the impression that people here don't particularly like to cook or at least they don't do it very often and they like to go to many different stores to get what they need. Great if you have a car or a mo-pied not so hot if you are on foot. I actually found the Sainsbury's on accident when I was at Border's books! Yes, they do have Border's here! I didn't spend much time there but I am going to go back either tomorrow, on my way home from campus, or the next day when I don't have anything else to do. There are a lot of other books stores around too, but Border's is familiar so I think I will stick with that one for a while. So to sum up I got some groceries and some utensils to eat with hurray! Didn't buy any books, in fact didn't even make it to the upstairs portion but there is time for that.

After that adventure, I went home to put my groceries away and then ate some lunch. I headed out again around 3PM and made it back up to Wilkinson's, which if you remember, is like Target. I got some hand soap, a small note pad to keep track on my expenses, and some drain unclogger. I found that my shower doesn't drain well while I was in it this morning. I am not particularly fond of being ankle deep in water but, hopefully, that will be taken care of now. I was going to continue on with my excursions today after Wilkinson's but realized that I was not particularly sure where Millet's, which is a sports store, was (not real sure what to compare it to but probably a Sports Authority for their website). You see when you are a foreigner in a new city the last thing you want to do is get hopelessly lost and turned around. Sure, you could always ask for directions but I generally like to have a pretty good idea of where I am heading before I go and get lost. That way I don't feel so lost. It all makes sense, really it does. You just need to think about it a little bit harder.

Back to the story of my day though. So instead of heading out in the wrong direction I decided to check out the Bristol Mall. Let me tell you it looks like America exploded in there! There was a Supercuts, a Quicksilver, and a Body Shop (part of Bath & Body Works for those of you who are not familiar with it) among other things. Once I had made my way through the Mall, which, for its size (its three stories high), did not take any time at all surprisingly, I walked outside on the bottom floor to find myself in the middle of the outdoor section of the mall. There was an H&M, which is an American store as well. But, I figured that it was getting later, not really, though I read my watch incorrectly, I thought that it was coming up on 5PM when really I was an hour off, so technically I could still have perused the area for another hour or so before heading home. In any case, I walked home and hopefully fixed the drain in my shower, then set down to write all this out for all of you.

I have almost entirely unpacked, though I don't have enough storage for everything by any stretch of the imagination. I want to go to IKEA, but it is not within walking distance, which means that I would have to take the bus to get there and I not sure how that all works as of yet. I still need some essential things for my kitchen like pots and pans, knives, cutting board, and more stuff to eat, and hopefully a coffee pot but there are other difficulties that come with that which I am sure I will tell you about later. I also need to set up a bank account so that I don't have to keep telling the people at the check out that I have no "chip" in my card, which means that I hold everything up in the queue 'cuz I have to sign. I hope though that I will soon be on my feet and have everything sorted out. Tomorrow is Monday and so everything will be open and I can start taking care of some of these things that I have listed, among a laundry list of others. No church bells for the most part today, weird since its Sunday you would have thought that they would have been even more fastidious about ringing them than on Saturday, but I guess not. I am going to try to remember to take pictures for you as well so that I can post them up with the blogs but I am currently trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible, which apart from my style of non-girly dress is working out quiet well. I do wish that I had brought my "chucks" (all-stars) with me but alas I couldn't bring everything and there are a million and one shoe stores around here that I could step in any time and find some I am sure. Anyways, that's enough for now, hope to talk to some of you tonight (this morning for all of you). Love lots! Katie out.

New Beginnings

I know that it has been far too long since my last post and that this poor page of mine has been hopelessly neglected since I left San Diego about 9 months ago. So, in order to set things right I will now post from my new home in Bristol, England. Since I am so far away and know no one, as of yet, I thought that it would good of me to keep my family and friends apprised of my goings on here across the pond, in a non-technologically demanding, cheap and easy way. (I also have Skype for those of you who have that).

My first day in Bristol was spent running around getting things to make my new apt (aka closet) feel a little homier. Though my work on this front is no where close to being done I have made some necessary purchases, and am learning how to do monetary conversions in my head so that I do as little over paying as possible (fixed income and all). Here are some of the pictures of my apt prior to having unpacked some of my things (when my bags are unpacked I will post more pictures).

I have would have also included a sound bite of the church bells that go off for disgusting amounts of time today but the way to post sound bites is far to complex for me to want to attempt it currently. You would think that they would make it simple since they already have images and video, but they don't, oh well. The precise hours of their commencement and conclusion I am sure I will know by heart very shortly. There are three churches with in 2 blocks of where I live, at least that is all I have seen so far, but I swear there are a lot more than that, at least it sounds as though there are. Bristol blocks are not like San Francisco city blocks either so when I say 2 blocks convert that into about 1/4 a S.F. city block and then you will have a better idea. Bristol Cathedral is the largest and is the farthest away from what I can tell. There are two churches just to the left of the backside of my building, aka pretty much two buildings from my window. So, to say that I hear the church bells is a serious understatement. I used to say in San Diego that it sounded as though the ambulances, on their way to the hospitals, were going directly through my apartment. Well in that same vain, it seems as though someone has deposited bells in the middle of my ceiling on the hour every hour for about an hour during the daylight times.

Other than that, my apartment is rather quaint. It is very small but rather sufficient for one person. Though it is nothing like the palace I lived at in San Diego, it is fine for me. The street I live on leaves something to be desired and I would not as of yet chance walking along it at night by myself; filled with bars and clubs and theatres that should be in the in the overly artsy sections of San Francisco, by the look of some of the costumes. The rest of the area is nice though and one will never be in need of a place to eat unless the have no legs and can't walk about 600 feet. There is a seemingly endless supply of restaurants and pubs, I even saw a Subway (there you go Dad, now you know that you won’t go hungry. The mall with all the shops that you could ever want is about a 10 min (Katie speed, 15 to 20 for the rest of the world) walk away. They have everything from clothing to conveyance shops and there is an outdoor market on the way up to "The Mall."

The city itself is crawling with people, around the university you have students ranging from 12 or 13(Bristol Primary school is just on the far side of the University campus) to 30, though most do seem to be around the early 20's mark, as it should be at a university. There are stores on the far side of the city that you would be familiar with, Costco and IKEA are both here and you would never believe what I saw at the Heathrow airport on my way to catch the bus out to Bristol (saw another one on my way in, disgusting) KRISPY Crème donuts, just when you thought that you got rid of them all they show up in foreign countries.

I have decided that the best people to ask for directions are the people who work in Flower shops. I think that they are so cheerful because they get to work around lovely, wonderful smelling flowers all day and that makes them nicer people. You would be happy, or maybe a bit disappointed, to know that the UK shows our televisions programs on almost every channel. From Friends to Scrubs to the Apprentice, and even One Tree Hill (even though they have their own version of the Apprentice they still show ours...oy), they have got a good smattering of them. I was shocked really, I watched Friends most of last night before I went to sleep at the B&B I was staying at, which is supposedly in the nicest part of Bristol. I am not sure about that but it was much less busy that is for sure. Here, next to the University, the streets are filled.

Anyway, that sounds like a pretty good assessment of things from my end for now (I will just need to get ear plugs for the church bells. Thanks for the suggestion Vicki). I will post more pictures and write a bit more when I have something new to report. I have all of next week to play with then the following week I am off to Exmoor with my department for a 4 day all expense paid field trip. Chat with you all later, and remember I am just a Skype call or e-mail away! (Long Live the Internet!!!!!)