White Christmas………

………well sort of! It’s frosty most of the day and when that disappears the fog rolls in. We went to London to soak up a last bit of Christmas Culture in the big city and it was great. We hung out in Hyde Park and watched the skaters, we ate German Sausage at the German Christmas Fair and Rod talked to Santa (we think this was the real one). It was fun, we spent the day riding around on double decker buses to get to our destinations, We’ve decided it’s the only way to get to know the layout of London. The tube is easier and quicker but doesn’t give you any idea of where you are. We also decided to go to Harrod’s, we wanted to buy each other a £10 secret Santa gift to open on Christmas morning. We had always understood Harrods to be the iconic store of all things stylish and wonderful……….. WRONG….tacky, tacky, expensively tacky, think gold chains, big watches and lots of ‘bling’. We are sure there is some good stuff there, but we couldn’t find it. We did find the ‘shrine’ to Dodi and Diana however, ….cringe! On the way home we found Santa busking in the tube station (we don’t think this was the real one), but he did play a very groovy riff.
We decided to have a Christmas Party for all the staff here, (seeing as how we’ve got no friends)!!!! It was a lot of fun, we bought NZ beer and lots of Tim Tams from the NZ shop, sang carols and played charades.
Spending Christmas Day with Amy and Chris, then off to Tromso in Norway, as of now there is still no snow there, but it is forecast for Tuesday, the day we get there….can’t wait. As we write this you are waking up to Christmas morning, we wish you all the happiest of Christmases and a wonderful New Year. Lots of love xxxxxx

“On the first day of Christmas…….

……my truelove gave to me”…..yes well, ours weren’t in the pear tree, they were hanging in the game cupboard for several days. ‘tis the season of “shoots” and we have had quite a few of the family (and dogs) staying attending several shoots around the area.
Now please understand we know nothing about the finer points, but from what we have picked up talking to various people and keeping our ears open it goes something like this…..you get invited to…. or you buy your place…. or you buy…. “The Shoot”. This gives you the opportunity to get into your ‘shooting clobber’ (quite a fashion statement as you can see)…load up enough ordinance to start a small international incident, have a really GOOD BREAKFAST…..(cooked by the servant….”moi”)..pile into the Range Rovers and off you go into the freezing wilds. Now the rules of engagement seem to be very strict.
First of all there are the “guns” and the “beaters” and the “picker uppers” - the beaters scare the birds out of the undergrowth (the drive) and the guns line up in their proper places and blast hell out of the birds….pheasant, partridge and the odd magpie type thing…and the picker-uppers send in the dogs and do just that. After a few drives someone opens a bottle of ‘sloe gin’ and all the guns get a drink After doing this a few times it’s off to lunch, usually catered. Everyone has a jolly good time and on a good day shoot several hundred birds!!!! The person paying for the shoot puts up several thousand quid and then for each bird shot there is a fee of about 35 quid per bird ……so a good shoot cost about 10,000quid! I don’t get it, but it’s sport for some I suppose.
On the subject of birds, we have Mr & Mrs Goose living on the pond, they sleep on a raft in the middle of the pond to protect them from the fox. It’s very cold now and while there is no snow, there is a lot of ice around. We were worried that the pond would freeze over and the fox could get the geese…..BUT, get this, each goose takes a turn throughout the cold and frosty night, to swim around and around which prevents the ice completely forming on the pond
The days are crisp and clear and the sun is very low in the sky and rises like an orange ball about 8.30am ……travels around the sky like a silver dollar and then sets about 3.30pm with the most spectacular sunsets. It’s colder here than Tromso at the moment and talking with them up there today, there is still no snow in Tromso…this is the Arctic Circle!!!! It better get happening by next week!!! Have heaps to ‘blog’ so will do so again within the next few days…..thanks for the keeping in touch, it’s great for us xxxxx

Frosty……..

Well, we’ve had a few frosts and it’s been a bit cool, but we woke up this morning to a doozy……The environment we live it is pretty comfortable, we have double glazing, a living flame fire, an Aga, plus radiators in every room, even the cloak room loo, so it’s easy to loose touch with what’s going on outside. This morning we pulled back the curtains and Wooh!...... one MOTHER of a frost. As it was our day off we went for a lovely walk. It always takes us about 10 minutes to gear up with our gloves, scarves, boots and hats and anything else we can put on to keep warm. It was gorgeous, The cows had frost beards from eating frozen grass…sod that. The geese were sitting on their raft in the middle of a frozen lake hoping the ice wasn’t thick enough for the fox to walk on. There were masses of holly all around, but over the last week the birds have stripped the berries off the bushes. We have our employer’s family coming to stay over the next week and so have had to put the holly in the raspberry cages to keep it safe from the birds, so they can take it back to London to decorate their houses. We got carried away about 2 weeks ago and decorated our house ‘cause it’s so easy to feel Christmassy in this part of the world. It is the season for “shoots” (declaring war on the local wild life) and because our Estate doesn’t have that many shoots these days, the pheasants come and hang out with us, however last Saturday we did have a “shoot” Rod was a beater and managed to scare out the fox – not quite what the guns were looking for – it got away (Rod was silently cheering), however this morning he’s been hanging around sizing up the bathams - again……if he’s not careful he’s gonna get it!! Anyway it’s getting damn cold, the frost didn’t melt today it’s 1 degree here, 5degrees in Tromso so we’re looking forward to going there – warmer temps AND we get snow AND hopefully the Northern Lights……more about that later. Miss you heaps and hope you’re all getting into the Christmas mode….lots of love xxx

Just another Saturday in London…….

………having spent all our money last week at Hamleys (the LARGEST toy store in the world), we decided to go to London yesterday just to hang out and check out some ‘free’ culture. We went to Oxford and Regent Street for a while, checked out Trafalgar Square and then wandered along the Thames. The buskers were wonderful, everything from a string quartet to a couple of guys playing amazing rhythms on a wooden box and a few inverted plastic buckets. The chaps on the banks of the Thames were going hard out to beat the tide with their sand sculpting. We eventually got a bit cold so dropped into the Tate Modern and were confronted by the most astonishing ‘piece’ – “Shibboleth” by Doris Salcedo….a long snaking crack across the vast length of the gallery, fracturing the concrete floor. For the artist, the crack reveals a ‘colonial and imperial history that has been disregarded, marginalized or simply obliterated’ she reminds us by gouging open the very ground that we walk on, that these wounds cannot be simply consigned to the past, that we must confront uncomfortable truths about our world and about ourselves without self-deception….phew!!!....it was amazing to be in a place that would allow such an installation to take place. It was challenging on many levels, not least being the expense involved in creating something so ‘permanent’ yet with a transitory existence like rangoli.
Emerging several hours later it was dark and so we wandered on and ended up in a lovely pub on the banks of the Thames for a pint. It was cosy under the radiators so we ordered fish and chips (okay Ian & Janet we are up to 2009!!!). We scoffed these, convinced we were having supper, glanced at our watch and it was only 10 past 4!!!! Puleeze!….too late for lunch…way too early for supper…afternoon tea???? Not only has our direction in this part of the world gone to pieces, but also our body clocks have become completely dysfunctional……make it dark and we’re ready to snuggle down for the duration…. don’t know how we are going to get on in Tromso, more about that later…………miss you and love hearing from you xxxx

Christmas Shopping in London……..

…….oh my goodness, what fun!!! Our sole purpose was to go to certain shops….Tackling London has to be planned like a military operation….we had our list and off we went. 25 minutes later we popped out in Liverpool St. and it was ‘game on’…..hit the Spittalfield Markets….not what we were looking for. Back down into the railway station and off on the tube to Oxford Circus..bit of good stuff there…”ker….ching”! Back down to the tube….off to Picadilly Circus…Hamleys – the BIGGEST toy shop in the world. Three hours later we staggered out with booty for 6 grandchildren + 1 surrogate. …”ker….ching.. ker….ching.. ker….ching”! It was amazing, I think we probably paid over the top prices but it was such fun. Now we have to wrap and post.
“Life as a servant” continues to present us with little incidents…..today I was preparing lunch for our employers and guests and was advised “go and get your camera Barbara, Simon and Polly are calling in with the trap”. Sure enough, Davinia (the horse) arrived pulling a dear little ‘trap’ with her people. Rod was asked to offer a ‘stirrup cup’…they downed that and off they went, back down the country roads. A short time later our employer said to Rod “ there’s a calling card on the driveway Rod, wait for it to dry out a bit and then you may like to clean it up”………Of course Sir!
The days are cold and frosty, which we aren’t aware of until we step outside, it’s still incredibly beautiful and thanks to some lovely contact from home, the homesickness has receded slightly. Miss you heaps and really, really wish you here xxxxxxxxxxxx

Spain – Part 5 – Contrasts…….

……….one of the great things about traveling is the ups and downs, but these are only great when you look back in hindsight. We struggled in Spain without any language, even feeding ourselves was a bit of a mission. The old tried and true, smiling, pointing and gesticulating was met with a bored shrug! However, we met Alberto, the “marvelous waiter” in one of the hotels we stayed in. Alberto gave us a glass of free champagne, arranged food he knew we would like and gave us a taste of Spain – we loved Alberto!
We also loved the colour pallet of Andalucia – blue, white, ochre, dusty blue green.
The only time we saw olive trees growing amongst green was in this photo, mostly they were growing by the 10000 acres in brown dusty terrain as far as the eye could see against impossibly blue skys.
Thousands of years of incredible history and stories sit alongside graffiti and grunge – see our last hotel! (We didn’t get any sleep…thought we would be knocked out by the dope oozing into our room from the street….then robbed and murdered…you know how the imagination goes wild when you are sleep deprived…drugged…. and it’s the early hours of the morning!!!)……….that’s it for blogging Spain….. back to “Life as a Servant”!!!!........miss you heaps and know that this homesickness will pass…much love xxxx

Spain – Part 4 – Alhambra……

……if you are familiar with Ponsonby, you will know the Alhambra, bar and restaurant. Probably the only thing it has in common with the real thing are the stunning view across the city. Alhambra looks out over Granada and the surrounding Sierra Nevadas…..glorious. Like so many cool Moorish architectural achievements in Spain, this one was taken over by the Catholic conqueros and huge Christian artifaces were imposed on it not adding anything to the original. The fact that irrigation was designed virtually on a mountain to support the planting of a rain forest and beautiful gardens pays tribute alone to the original design even without the amazing timeless structures and mosaics. We spent two days wandering around with our mouths hanging open………to be continued. Terribly homesick at the moment and wonder what on earth we are doing here!!!!!!!!!

Spain….. Part 3……Plaza de Toros……

……..bull fighting is as Spanish as ‘tortilla’ and so we visited “La Real Maestranza de Caballeria de Sevilla”, I must say I went reluctantly being aware that from the time the bull leaves the farm where it is breed specifically to go into the ring it’s virtually dead meat! Still, while you can’t equate the dead meat logic with rugby, I guess one has to recognize certain cultural differences – do the Spanish play rugby?????
Fortunately the season had finished so it was just a good look around and it was quite fascinating.
The bullring we visited is one of the most beautiful in Spain apparently, as well as one of the most significant in the history of bullfighting. The bull heads on the wall were particularly sad….the last matador killed there managed, as he was dying, to kill the bull and they both died at the same moment – great, crowd pleasing stuff! The other head (and this is the unfair bit I think…) is the mother of the aforementioned bull. It was decided by the – who ever?? – that another bull should not be breed that could ‘kill people’ - uummmmm - I don’t get that?? The chapel is where the matadors pray before they go into the ring. Trivia – did you know that a matador’s costume cost around 25,000 Euros? Also the top matadors are great celebrities and get paid mega bucks per appearance.
The other photo of a bullring is my favourite….we didn’t visit it, but that was the view from our hotel room in Malaga (Picasso’s birthplace) and I think that is probably where that famous photo of Picasso watching a bull fight was taken, that’s my kind of history……….to be continued……..
Miss you heaps………xxxxxxx

Spain Part 2 – Flamenco & Culture in Seville….

…..having experienced an excellent flamenco singing, albeit lousy cook/waiter/barman our first night in Seville we set out the next day to find some more. We encountered a guitar player in the Square around the cathedral and started talking with him. He spoke no English but it just happened that a fellow student of his from the Flamenco School, stopped by to see him. Yuki is Japanese, spoke fluent Spanish as well as very good English! We set up a rather bizarre 4 way conversation around where was the best place to see flamenco dancing, singing and guitar. Yuki offered to take us and show us the venue in the maze of streets around Barrio Santa Cruz. He was fascinating to talk with, a professional guitarist in Japan, had spent 2 years riding a push bike from Alaska to South America and was now in Seville studying flamenco guitar on a 3 year course. That night we went to the place he recommended and it was everything flamenco…. passionate, stirring, romantic. So accomplished and complex is the guitar technique that Rod has given up all hope of learning anything but a smidgen!!!!
The Cathedral, like a lot of Christian stuff in Spain has been built on the site of a great mosque, it’s been added to over the years and is now the largest church in the world and has something like 28 side chapels which are monuments to the wealth and style of successive ages. Christopher Columbus is entombed there. It was impossible to photograph the immensity and grandeur of it, but from the top of the bell tower (part of which was once a minaret!) – you can see the courtyard, which has become a cloister. In Moorish times the worshippers would wash their hands and feet in the fountain before going into the mosque. In the Sacristy are the keys to the city, presented to the Christian Conquerers by the Moors and Jews to keep it all intact – astonishing!! However the keys are inscripted in Arabic “May Allah render eternal the dominion of Islam in the city” - watch this space………..
On a much lighter note, this guy was busking for most of an afternoon, the temperature was around 24 degrees……he got our money! Miss you all heaps and will continue this saga…………………..

Spain- Part 1…..

…..we arrived in Seville, pronounced “Sebeea” by the Spanish. We found our hotel -Hotel Amadeus and it was charming - classical cd’s in the rooms, instruments everywhere for the use of guests. Breakfast the next morning was brought up to us on the rooftop terrace, clear blue skies and white buildings. We had been told by a relative of our employer, not to bother learning any Spanish as “everywhere” the locals spoke English…..yeah right....maybe four star and up…….certainly not at ground level!!!!!!
Ordering food was our first problem, our first night we ordered “tortilla” – obviously Spanish, bit of an omelete, we thought we couldn’t go wrong with that. What we ended up with, in a Tapas Bar, where the waiter was also the cook, come barman, come proprietor, was a HUGE slab of potatoe and egg, reminiscent of a stucco type piece of architecture heated up in a microwave. However, he did redeem himself by singing passionate flamenco music and we suspect that is where his true vocation lay!
Learned a thing or two about ‘proscuitio’ though – most bars have them hanging from the ceilings and we imagine that part of the curing process continues with bar smoke and fug… then after they have showed up as part of your tapas they meet the eventual fate of the one we saw at my left shoulder as we sat alfresco!! We never did truly crack the food thing, we were constantly misunderstood, mislead, misguided and miserable with our food, with one or two exceptions (more about this in another blog). Experiencing food was one of our big expectations - and like most of our preconceptions of this trip it bit the dust! Spain for us was full on and in your face……we loved the sign at the river bank – linguistic evolution?
To be continued…………….xxxxxxx