Gracie’s Life Experiment

We went to see an open air performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tonight at Donington Le Heath Manor House (near Coalville) by the Chapterhouse Theatre). Before the performance we had our little picnic - well actually there were about 4 courses to our picnic as Rach & Lou had got loads of stuff too (and we had some duplicate items). It was really entertaining, apart from being a bit cold and blustery (thankfully there was no rain). It was a bit hard to hear at the beginning cos the wind was rustling through the trees, but it died down a bit in the second half.  Shrimp had a whale of a time kicking and flipping about during the performance - rather embarrassingly I had to get up in the middle of the first half for a comfort break.  Shrimp was using my bladder as a trampoline.

Summary of the day: Had a bath, Did some more on lit review, Prepared salads and stuff for picnic, Picked up prescriptions, Picked up Rach & Lou, Went to Donington Le Heath.

Shrimp was particularly wriggly all day today.  I woke up at around 3.30am, lay there trying to go back to sleep till 5.30am, then ended up getting up and doing something useful.  By 8am I had done the washing up, cleaned the kitchen, put a load of washing in, put it in tumble drier, folded and put them back in the wardrobe, done some sudokus, swept the floor.  I’m really not enjoying this insomnia - but at least I made myself useful.  I managed to get another hr’s sleep at 8am and then couldn’t sleep anymore. 

Summary of the day:  Woke up at stupid o’clock, Did household chores, Went to Tescos (very stressful on a Sat) to get stuff for a party, Made satay chicken, Went to Ella & Pete’s birthday BBQ, Watched Holland v Russia football match (comedy surnames!!  Zherkov and Arshavin!)

Today was my last day at work.  I got in the car and left for work feeling a bit of trepidation that it would be the last time I would have to do that.  Got to work and said hi to everyone as usual.  Found a box of chocolates on my desk from one of my final year students (aw, it’s nice to be appreciated).

Felt a bit sad.  Spent the whole morning packing up my stuff (3 filing cabinets and a desk full of stuff).  It’s a bit depressing that 6 years of my work condenses down into a 42 litre plastic box and 2 plastic bags.  It felt quite liberating though to clear things out/tidy up the cabinets and I managed to recycle 2 whole bins full of stuff.  Went out for pub lunch with some of the peeps from work which was nice and chilled.  Spent the afternoon backing up and copying files onto my external hard drive and finishing off a few bits of work.  It then took me over 1/2 hr to write my goodbye email to everyone (which was especially sad). 

Had my leaving do at Moomba, which seemed apt seeing as we’re off to Oz later this year.  It was nice to have so many colleagues out and made me realise that most of these people are also my friends that I see almost every day and a lot of them I socialise with too.  I didn’t seem so bad saying goodbye as I will still be in Loughborough until December and will prob be popping into the office now and again to say hello and bring the baby in once she’s born.

I got a loads of presents wrapped up in the shape of a boomerang which was so cool!  It was like Christmas again!  Mostly a lovely set of topaz and silver jewellery and address book and pen to keep in touch with everyone.

Summary of the day:  Felt sad, Went to work, Went to pub, More work, Had a quick nap at home, Went out for leaving dinner. 

The weather was glorious today.  We met up with one of hubby’s friends for Sunday lunch at a pub in the countryside.  We were trying to think of somewhere between Loughborough and Nottingham that wasn’t overly too gastropub.  We went to The Otter in Kegworth which is a lovely pub on the River Soar.   The sun was out and the barges were floating on by outside the window.   I had the Chicken Kiev which was really scrummy (it had roasted garlic and Applewood smoked cheddar inside).  Hubby had a Venison steamed pudding and Lisa had the Beef & Guinness pie (with the puff pastry top).  It was a lovely treat to go out for lunch. 

Summary of the day:  Played piano in church, Went to Tescos to find some more Rennies (mm pack of 64 fruit ones) and also picked up the Tommee Tippee Steriliser kit with free bottles (shame it doesn’t seem to fit with the Tommy Tippee Freedom pump we bought last week - must be different seasons), Met up for lunch, Had a bath, Wrote a 45 min presentation for tomorrow

Went for a day trip to Wales to visit our friend Cat whose birthday it was on Friday (in fact it was also my other friend Em and also hubby’s brother’s birthday too). She lives in Cwmbran. It was absolutely baking in the car on the way down - luckily we opted to go in my car which has aircon (very uneconomical but a lifesaver on a 3 hr drive). I know when we have BBQs we always get enough food for everyone, but people still bring stuff and we end up eating sausages all week long and Cat said not to bring any BBQ stuff. So we thought, hmm let’s bring a birthday cake then (unfortunately so did 3 other lots of guests at the party). Not really a problem as Cat’s blokey likes cake - A LOT!! We went A512, A42, M42, M5, M50, A40, A449, M4 route this time. The A40/A449 bit was really scenic and Wales looked really quite lush - last time we drove down it was November and was seriously soggy and cold.

It was a great party.  Nice and chilled, good mix of people (i.e. lots of different groups all mingling), and the weather was fantastic.  Our friends Lis and Rol were also there, Lis is 7 weeks behind us with her pregnancy and it was quite fun comparing experiences so far.

Summary of the day:  Went to buy a birthday cake, Drove down to Wales (took just under 3 hrs with some jams on the M42), BBQ party, Socialised with lots of mutual friends, Drove back to Loughborough (only took 2.5 hrs at 8pm)

Considering we had nothing planned this weekend, we seem to have had a jam packed time anyway. Got a phone call early afternoon from an old friend (in fact an ex from ages ago) and some other mutual friends from student days who were back in Loughborough for the day. They wanted to know if I would like to come on a campus wander around to see what’s changed (hmm, passed on that seeing as I drive through campus every day). Met up at the Students’ Union (yikes haven’t been there since October) for a coffee and found out there was a beer festival on. John was happy as he got a tankard and quite a few 1/2 pints of various tipples. I had a soya mocha decaff yum (wow the Ritazza is so cheap at the SU - £1.50).

Summary of the day: Played piano at church, Went shopping at Aldi, Went out to see old friends, Folded clothes (oddly therapeutic), Watched Family Guy Blue Harvest (it rocked)

Today was exactly as Friday’s should be.  Woke up and was happy as hubby has landed his ideal job in Oz starting in Jan cos his new school is willing to wait for him (hurray we won’t be penniless, or should that be centless when we emigrate).  Plenty of time before work to clear away kitchen stuff and have a nice bowl of cereal.  Rocked into work around 9.30.  Got lots of 1/2 jobs done before lunch.  Pub lunch (mmm Griffin fishfinger sandwiches).  Sloth off back to work at 1.30pm.  Shut down, back up work folders onto external harddrive.  Enjoy shutting down PC knowing that there’s no work for 3 days (yay for Bank Holidays).  Bugger off by 2.30.  Get home and have a nap.  Give piano lesson.  Make simple pasta dinner.  Go round to friend’s house for drinking (no alcohol for me though), Sci-Fi TV and board games.  And EXCELLENT Friday!

Summary of the day: Was chilled

There’s a new treetop walk that opened last month near Wollongong.  My brother had the day off so we decided to go for a day trip.  Hmm, it wasn’t really that near Wollongong after all as it took about 2 hrs to get there from the Bundeena in the Royal National Park.  We did stop at a rather nice pie shop in Robertson though.  As poms we hadn’t encountered the famous Aussie “meat pie” yet.  I had a steak, cheese and bacon pie which was scrummy.  The pies were kind of shortcrust and crunchy on the bottom with puff pastry on the top (so not at all like the soggy pukka pies you get in the chippy).  John had a steak one followed by a dessert pie (I think it was blackcurrant or something).  The shop must do very well as it was in the middle of nowhere!

The Illawarra Fly tree top walk is a big steel walkway that is elevated 25m above the forest floor, so you’re literally walking around at the top of the forest.  I wonder though what happens when the trees grow higher, will it then be an “almost” treetop walk?  It was pretty cool and a bit scary (especially the cantalever bits where my brother insisted on walking at odd frequencies to make it resonate/bounce).  As it’s only just opened it wasn’t too busy.  I can’t imagine what it would be like with loads of people on it at the same time as some of the walkways were quite narrow and passing would have to be done single file (provided no one had stopped along the way to take a photo).

Summary of the day: Went to the tree top walk, Had pies (mmm), Went to a microbrewery in Wollongong (to appease John’s cravings for real ale - yes, you can find it in Oz, and no it isn’t fizzy), Went out to a Persian restaurant for dinner

We had a fab day doing the “tourist” thing in Sydney. We got one of those Daytripper travel passes ($16 for all bus/ferry/train) and discounts off some of the attractions. We went on the ferry to Taronga Zoo (15% off the daytripper). It was really hot, but not actually too busy. Unfortunately the Southern Oceans exhibit wasn’t open yet and all the sea creatures were being acclimatised into their new homes so we didn’t get to see any of them. The rest of it was pretty cool and we got loads of piccies of all the weird fauna (inc John posing in front of monkeys as is the tradition). Still think Melbourne Zoo was better, but maybe that’s cos 1/3 of the zoo was closed.

[Edit: found out on Thursday that it was the grand opening of the Southern Oceans exhibit - d'oh 2 days too late for us]

Summary of the day: Went to the Zoo! Had a burger for dinner (it’s mad, the standard Aussie burger has loads of onions, cheese, relish, salad and the most humungous slice of beetroot I’ve ever seen)

Little Miss Mocha decided it would be such fun to howl along to the storms through the night.  Just because the wind blows over the chimney pots making howling noises, she thinks she has to join in.  She finally shut up at about 4am after John got angry with her.  So spent today like a grumpy, zombified pregnant woman!  The day ended nicely as we got invited round to Rachy’s for dinner (mmm enchiladas) and ended up reminiscing about when we were kids and all the awful 80s trends we thought were cool at the time (now terribly cringy).

 Summary of the day:  Shouted at barking dog, Went to work, Went to Rachy’s for dinner