Winter Wonderland……..

 
 
 
 

……….we have been experiencing sub zero temperatures over the last few days and it’s made everything rather misty and mysterious. Yesterday a frosting appeared on the trees and by this morning they were white, the ground is still brown….apparently it is too cold to snow….I don’t truly get that!
Today we went for a walk along a disused canal, it was breathtakingly beautiful albeit rather chilly. The temperatures are set to rise to a massive 10 degrees over the next few days so we’ll be up to our armpits in mud as there is so much work going on around our grounds.
Meeting some really interesting people. We had supper last night with two Artisans who are working on the manor. For some reason it seems much easier to make friends here than it was in Essex. In our experience people are friendlier in this part of the country, complete strangers greet us and comment on our South African accents!!!! We haven’t come up with a rational explanation for it yet?….Have just found some really cheap train fares to London…..so we will be hitting the ‘big smoke’ again shortly……….in the meantime the Cotswolds have plenty to keep us enthralled………..

Life as a 5* servant……..

 
 
 
 

……..It's good to be here at the manor full-time now...we're meeting the locals and finding that we are surrounded with friendly, supportive and outgoing people...within 24 hours of being here we were invited to dinner....back at our last gig we were only invited to dinner once in 18 months ....working 12 hour days may have had something to do with it!!!!
Anyhow...we're trying to figure out what the first thing we're supposed to be doing is......It’s major! There are bulldozers, earth-movers, diggers, graders, electricians, plumbers, interior decoraters, landscapers, gardeners, stone-masons..........there are wires hanging out of the walls, bedrooms and bathrooms to finish, dustcloths over very serious antique furnishings and fittings and a kitchen of amazing equipment which needs to be figured out. Every cupboard and shelf is so full of stuff for preparing, cooking and serving food that we are wondering…. "Where does the food fit?"
We went for a walk to the source of the Thames – astonishing when you think of how it grows, expands and becomes such a major water way……As you can see, we have snow on the ground and an original “ice bucket”! The houses are so snuggly and warm though, you don’t realize the sub-zero temps until you stand outside for a few minutes.
Miss you all heaps and hope that you are enjoying a truly splendid summer…….much love xxxx

Christmas……..

 
 
 
 
….was with cousins Kelly, R.J. and his partner Eduardo…it was fun…their friends are all ‘foreigners’ as well, so we partied without a “Brit” in sight and it was outrageous. It took us a few days in Portugal to recoup!!……..Ahhhh…..Portugal….our new fav place (next to Paris of course)…..it was wonderful. The people are friendly, the food is incredible.
We found restaurants that wanted us to try local food and plied us with all sorts of little treats. We stayed in Faro in the Algarve and after a few days decided that we would like to go up into the hills and explore the villages up there. We checked out the public transport system, it was slightly better than Auckland, but it wasn’t going to get us where we wanted to go AND back, so we decided to hire a car. We have managed up until now to avoid this. The idea of actually driving on the ‘wrong side’ had become a very scary prospect, particulary as we have been passengers in ‘left hand drive cars’ and have spent all our time cringing as we have gone around roundabouts!!!! New Year’s Resolution – “No fear”…..so off we went – first roundabout I screeched at Rod “Watch the left! Watch the left”……we got through and didn’t look back, it was great – so look out Europe – we are taking to the road. More about Portugal when I've edited the photos.
Settling into our new job……snow on the ground…..it’s a “winter wonderland”….more about that later……..much love xxxxxx

Berlin……..

 
 
 
 

.......having a few spare days before Christmas, we decided to spend them with Hattie in Berlin. Those of you who know Hattie will be thrilled to know that she is living her dream. She works regularly with a variety of musicians and has a very bohemian flat in an inner city suburb; the church steeple is the view from her car park. It was great to hang out, go to a few of her pre-Christmas gigs and of course to visit “the wall”. Astonishing to drive through a city with remnants of something that was so ‘huge’ in our lifetime and discover that we really know so little about it. The first big realization for us was that Berlin was actually situated in Eastern Germany and that the wall created a small piece of West Germany (in effect an island) in what was in fact part of the Eastern Bloc. For some reason we had imagined that “the wall” went neatly through a city, tidily dividing East from West, which it sort of did of course, but not in the way we’d envisaged.
We spent a very informative afternoon with a friend of Hattie’s explaining to us, how it
was for Berliners when the wall came down, suddenly, without warning……one friend had been out of the city on a gig – he came home to a totally new way of life….extraordinary……Hope your Christmas was great…..more about ours later…..lots of love xxxxxx