Friday, May 27, 2011

Ireland

We went to Ireland and stayed in the town that my father in law lived in. The froglet got some authentic Irish dance shoes as she was needing some new ones. The fisherman got to fish with his Dad and the noisy one met her Irish cousins.




please note that you need to double the price of the fuel from Euros to Aussie dollars.... yes you are reading correctly.... now you may pick your jaw off the ground.


No trip to Ireland is complete without kissing the Blarney stone. We all did this and now you can blame the stone for my non stop blethering!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

heart beats

Well back to reality for me.... had to return to work after having nearly 7 weeks off. what a bummer! (have to take some more holidays soon!).

I will post some more pictures of the trip soon I promise, but here is a picture of my newest toy.



I have been admiring heart rate monitors for some time now and when one of my friends said she had bought one for a good price I thought I would check them out... the rain the other day kept me from going to the car so I ended up with this little beauty.

I have used it in a pump style class and burned up 330 Cal's. The idea of using a HRM is that you workout smarter and more efficiently so time will tell!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Bound for Ireland

This is wollerton Hall, a very stately mansion near my father in laws. There are free roaming deer on the grounds and the girls were intrigued by the mole holes in the ground.

The mansion has some rooms done up like it would have been when the family resided there and the rest of it is a museum of the most unlikely artifacts from semi precious stones to stuffed animals. Now of course animal lovers would not be happy about this but these were done in the days waaaaaaaay before animal rights and it does give one the opportunity to see some animals up close.

We drove from Nottingham to Holyhead in Wales to catch the ferry to Dublin.

Had a chuckle when we saw this on the ferry.... made me feel so much safer lol

This was our first view of Ireland from the Ferry

Of course we saw many white swans as we travelled, I love our black swans but the white swans are very beautiful too.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

In search of the sheriff of nottingham

No trip to London is complete without a visit to Harrods!


This was the price of a nice piece of Salmon... 95 quid!!! eeeekkkk!


We left London and drove up to visit the fisherman's dad in Nottingham. We visited the castle and found the gardens to be in bloom with all the lovely spring flowers, I don't know what this one is but it caught my eye.

As usual the castle was decorated with gargoyles and other concrete beasties.

The oldest pub in England is here in Nottingham, it has small doors and low ceilings as they weren't very big people back in the olden days!


I must add that it is the coldest day ever recorded here in Melbourne in May, there has been snow up in the Alps (nearly 20cm in Falls creek) ski season could be massive this year!! We had snow up in the Dandenongs which is only about 45min drive from here..... my friend just said its very cold, to which I replied... cold enough to snow!! LOL

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

reliving holidays

The beauty of blogging after a holiday is you get to relive your adventures all over again!


My daughters and I walked many miles through London and came across many things by accident. We walked down Old Bond Street and found this was littered with the designer shops. You could only get into some if they unlocked the doors and admitted you... some shops had doormen on the outside.

This is a doorman of a different kind! This very happy chappy was on duty at Buckingham Palace which was undergoing an enormous clean out ready for the royal wedding.

This isn't a sight you would see wandering around the streets of Melbourne every day, but in London the car drivers didn't seem to blink an eyelid.

Some of the iron work in the gates are amazing

You cant get much more traditional looking that these 2 geezers!!

Monday, May 9, 2011

further images of London

The fisherman used to be a milko when he was younger and used to drive one of these electric milk floats. One came into the street while we were sitting in my sister in laws house so we stalked the milko.

They still have the glass bottles and they also have juice in the bottles too.


Of course we found squirrels.... we had a close encounter with one in Hyde park just before we came home but will show you pics of that later.


It was mothers day the first weekend we were in London so I had an early gift from my girls. In the local shopping centre was these little fishies who love to eat the dead skin off your feet.... I got to play with them!!

The age of this city never ceases to amaze me.

Big Ben constantly pops up in my viewfinder.

And the coffee? pretty shite to tell you the truth!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

A taste of London

Here is the first of my photos from my trip to the UK. I hope you enjoy sharing a little of my journey.


We arrived in London at 6.30am and we all managed to keep awake all day and of course slept like logs the first night which was great to get into our new time zone (coming home was a different matter lol).


This is Hammersmith Bridge, its still made from wood and moves when the cars and buses drive across it. They actually limit the amount of buses during peak hour so the bridge doesnt collapse.



Always a stunning sight to see when you step out of the tube station and there is Big Ben and the houses of parliment right in front of you. The froglet was in awe that during the Blitz that these stunning buildings missed being destroyed.



We went on the London eye and had a great view from above, the girls enjoyed being able to see many of the sights we were planing to visit in our coming days in London.



Westminster Abbey was unfortnately closed to the public the day we arrived but we loved the designs and many gargoyles on the outside of the Abbey.


Quite a few gruesome and scarey looking beasties considering its a church. The doors and stonework was amazing and now with the modern age of digital cameras I was able to capture many pictures that with old style cameras and film you couldnt afford!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Sorry I disappeared!!

Howdy folks,

Sorry to disappear like that but I went on holiday to the UK for 4 weeks and had limited Internet access.

I will be posting some select photos from my travels in the coming weeks for your viewing pleasure.

Since coming home I returned to the gym after doing nothing like I had been. Day one wasn't too bad, with a little muscle tightness.... day 2 was a nice swim but I could feel it in my arms. Day 3 was pump....owwwwww that hurt! day 4, well, what can I say? My P/T decided to do our fitness test again (after being off!!!) nasty man.

I was pleasantly surprised, I improved on the beep test with a result of 5.3 (but my chest was really hurting) and then all my other exercises I had slightly improved, until I reached the final 20Min's then I started to fatigue. So all in all, I didn't put on weight nor loose too much fitness but I do feel a little less toned.

Today was day 5 and it was RPM... did well until the 2Nd last track and I started to struggle to maintain my speed.

I still have one more week off work so will continue with the gym each morning!

stay tuned for photos