| Vickie's travels: Australia - 23/11/01 |
| Hello - I
met my friend easily at the airport and we went into Sydney
and got a place to stay. On the same day we went flat hunting
in the torrential rain and found a really clean granny flat
in Wentworthville for $60 each a week, a bargain. The next
day we moved in, day after we bought furniture, a delightful
children's bed each, and some beanbags!! Posh, I know. Then,
today we've applied for loads of jobs and I'm off to
an interview. Pretty hectic really but the weather has improved
to 25C. Hope you are all well... Love, Vickie |
| Vickie's travels: New Zealand - 6/11/01 |
| Just been on a helicopter ride over 5 glaciers
and the highest mountains in NZ. It was excellent as you can
imagine. Driven over 2000 miles in three weeks, slept near lakes,
seal colonies and below mountains. |
The lagoon and jetty at Okarito which enjoys a goldrush history,
wild coastline and vast wilderness visually dominated by the
nearby Southern Alps. |
| Sleeping at Okarito tonight then heading
over to the East coast of South Island to swim with dolphins
and seals and watch birds at dawn. Had a brilliant time in
the North Island visiting all the volcanic stuff especially
boiling mud pools and acidic multi-coloured lakes. Wellington
is a really vibrant city, excellent night life. Hope all three
of you are well.
Love, Vickie |
| Major re-design for the website. |
| As you have probably noticed, I've been
doing a bit of refurbishment on the website this month. It all
began when I noticed (with surprise) that the clipart site had
clocked up over 4000 hits since I'd last checked it - and therefore
decided I should update it and add some new animations etc.
Once I got into that, the News page was looking a little neglected,
then the Pictures menus seemed rather over-complicated... and
so it went on. |
| Improvements: |
| A brand new Home Page
layout - loads faster.
The Picture
menus have been redesigned - less clicks needed to get to
each album. The Paper
Shop layout was revised - now loading 20% faster. The Contacts
page was redesigned to improve the look and clarity. A new feature on Rafferty
with up to date pictures and an archive feature to look back
in time and watch him grow. Updated graphics on many pages, including a new title banner. |
| Future developments will include a Photo
Archive feature: pictures to bring back a few memories - initially
from student days at UMDS, but I will also include pictures
from King's and from my teenage years in North Devon. All that
should be ready in December. I'm also thinking of setting up
a Website Building Guide for beginners: tips on how to
set up a site easily and cheaply, without needing any HTML skills.
God knows when I'll get round to doing it, though! |
|
|
Gail Greene, Zanna Clarke & Vanessa living it up at the
Actuary's Guild Hall in Holborn. |
| Dominic & Anne's Wedding Reception
in Holborn... |
| On Saturday 10th November, Dominic Clarke
and his wife Anne had a reception at the Actuary's Hall in Holborn
to celebrate their marriage. The wedding itself had taken place
in Las Vegas a few weeks beforehand, at a little chapel with
a visit from the King himself. |
|
From the left: Dave Butler, Terry Clarke, Andi Fasino,
and Dom Clarke at the mike, then Nick, Tarby and Simon. |
| The evening began with a viewing of the
wedding video (lovely service complete with dancing monkey aka
Dave) and an exchange of vows from Dom and Anne. Then on to
the reception itself; the hall was splendidly appointed and
the food excellent - Beef Wellington so rare it was mooing -
and plenty of wine. Dave was one of the best men, and managed
to keep his part of the speech entertaining without revealing
all of Dom's sordid secrets. |
|
The Dave Machine with my family... he still keeps insisting
that he is really Raffy's father but I'm not having any of
it! |
| Rafferty came with us and enjoyed the company.
He had fun vomiting over Daddy's jacket, but then slept through
the end of the evening while Sue Clarke danced with him draped
over her shoulder. The end of the evening arrived all too quickly
and we piled into a minibus for the long trip back to Sutton. |
| Vanessa's trip to Portugal |
| On the 29th November Vanessa & Rafferty
flew over to Lisbon for another quick Portuguese visit with
the Groombridges. The weather in Cascais was certainly better
than the cold gray gloom of Canterbury; clear skies and warm
sun all round - and that's about as cold as it gets. Jo &
Vanessa managed to get all their Christmas shopping done, while
Raffy learnt how to sit up by himself. |
|
Rafferty pestering Annabelle Groombridge in Portugal... |
| Apparently the Christmas lights in Cascais
are fantastic, but you'll have to take Vanessa's word for that
as we don't have any pictures. What we do have are some nice
photos of Rafferty with Oliver and Annabelle, which can be seen
in the November page of Rafferty's
album. |
| |
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|
| Many beers in Cirencester with Nick
& Ben... |
| On Saturday 1st December I finished a busy
on-call at 9am and drove to Cirencester, where the Sherwin is
doing his GP rotation, and has bought a new house. Nice place,
too, although at the moment needs a few touches (like a bloody
sofa, Nick). Ben Hunter joined us in the afternoon as
did Brian Togher, one of Nick's mates from a previous A&E
job. |
|
Ben wakes up and smells the juniper... |
| Apart from showing off his unfeasibly large
collection of DVDs it also emerged that Nick had a bottle of
gin lying around. Memories of medicinal ginnings from our student
days surfaced, and unfortunately no-one had the sense to realise
that drinking half a bottle of gin by 6pm wasn't a good plan.
I even got ginned while trying to phone Vanessa, who was in
Portugal at the time... |
|
Dan gets ginned while trying to phone Vanessa. |
| Finally we made it out of the house to a
nearby pub which sold one or two real ales that needed to be
tried. A few games of 20/22 followed - and with our gin-addled
brains we managed to lose badly. Next we were off to another
pub where Nick pointed out his ex-girlfriend for our entertainment.
Poor girl ignored us of course... |
|
The highly intellectual conversation began to hurt Nick's
brain... |
| Sometime later we made it to a curry house
and noshed what I think was quite a nice curry, but it's all
a little hazy from then on. Ben bailed out and went back to
the house for a kip, while Nick, Brian & I went looking
for a club. After failing in our quest - 'You're not coming
in 'ere wearing those jeans, mate...' - Nick and Brian sneaked
into a private function at the local police station while I
got lost and got a taxi home. |
|
Finally, after about half a bottle of gin, we staggered
to the pub. |
| The two lads were quickly escorted out of
the police station when Nick decided to harangue one of the
coppers about the lax security at their party. A few beers
and some Shrek to round off the evening, and a jolly good time
was had by all... Next morning it was off to Macky D's
for about twenty bacon rolls and a coffee infusion. |
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