Woke up to gorgeous blue skies today. Bit nippy but this soon gave way to a warm day.
We chose to go via boat all day so got the 24 hour ACTV card for 18 euro each. Visited Saint Marks Square, Lido for a pizza lunch, Murano for glass ware. Had far too many espressos but don’t care!
Highlights for me were the blue dies, being on the water and a fab limoncello gelato.
Just realised I didn’t take one photo of St Marks Square. To be honest wasn’t that impressed by it.
We arrived at 9.30at night to a quiet airport. Marco Polo airport is nothing to write home about. However the air exiting the plane was warm and you could smell the sea. Lovely.
Within the first 10 minutes of leaving the terminal we had already been ripped off 5 euro when we purchased a ticket for the bus. Apparantly change is too hard to figure out?
Breakfast this morning was plentiful and good. Sleep was peaceful too.
After 30 minutes of figuring out the train we hit Venice proper. Beautiful if not still full of tourists. Thank goodness for McDonalds and free wifi.
Well to be honest it is not so much writers block because there is always something that can be dribbled about. What I am really after is a proper name for this blog and some decent writing! OK so the decent writing comes down to me but I am keen for some ideas on a name change. Carleen’s blog is rather uninspiring so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I recently discovered a blog of a gorgeous friend of ours in Sydney. You know who you are. I found it really inspiring and it got me excited again about blogging. For many months now I haven’t paid much attention to it and this probably comes more from my state of mind than a lack of interest. So here’s to a change of name, state of mind and hopefully something interesting to share.
Side note: just went into the kitchen and saw the largest RAT I have ever seen. I need to get the washing out of the machine and would really like some lunch but I’m too scared to go in there now. Everyone’s out so no one to send in ahead of me. Boo hoo.
That’s right, Robin Hood. We took a side trip home via Sherwood Forest today. We were up in Walsall for a mates wedding. Our first English/Welsh wedding. Well actually it was the evening reception after the actual ceremony and speeches. To us kiwis (or maybe it is just me) it is a strange concept going to the reception and not the ceremony. We would normally invite all and sundry to watch the ceremony and then just close family and friends to the reception. Still haven’t figured out the traditions and quirks of this country but it was a good night and really lovely to see P & H looking fabulously happy.
The next day we were planning to head to the Snow Centre for a ski in Tamworth. However when we got there we were rather surprised at the large numbers of birthday parties and kids. No way were we going on the slopes with them! So, we decided to take a trip to Nottingham and of course Sherwood Forest.
Nottingham as it turned out was a rather large city with a very nice river running through it. The traffic on the other hand was a huge wind up so we got out of there pretty quick. Quite a number of Art Deco buildings mixed in with everything else you can think of!
By chance Sherwood Forest had a re-enactment weekend on so this was a really exciting bonus for us. The forest is incredible with really easy walkways. The forest has many amazing twisted and gnarled Oak trees. These trees are classed as ancients. We are talking 700 years old. They look amazing and this is by far and away the most interesting forest I have visited to date in the UK. I think it was most likely due to the Oaks which just look so majestic. I was quite taken by them. Forests in the UK are definitely not like NZ. They are not as dense and as lush as what we are used to yet Sherwood was closer to a forest than anything else we have seen to date.
The re-enactments were really interesting to watch if not a bit scary. Lets just put it this way…always treat a gun as if it is loaded. Don’t EVER point the business end at me even if you are sure it isn’t loaded. I sure as heck didn’t want to find out the messy way if it was!
Other than that it was an incredibly interesting day passing by the time periods marked by the costumes and village scenes set up. From the Saxons and Normans, to the Victorians, WWI, WWII and even into the 80’s it was amazing to see the progression of weaponry and clothing across these periods. No surprise visits by Robin Hood or his merry men though. What a shame. We did see the ancient Major Oak though that legend says was where he used to meet his men before they went on their raids. You can see the Major Oak behind the musketeer in one of the following photos.
I really have been up to stuff but to be honest I had forgotten to blog about it. The main reason I suppose is that when you have gotten used to living somewhere the everyday things become mundane.
If you really want me to share…we have been to the usual Friday night movie. Actually this week it was Tuesday and Friday. I will be blogging about these later. I have also been trying for the last 3 weekends to find a dress for a wedding reception we are off to on Friday. It must be said that they do weddings on a rather grander scale that at home. You are expected to dress up rather posh so this has put the pressure on to find a glam frock. Finally found one although I still have to find shoes. Can I just say how much I dislike shopping for clothes let alone shoes!
Also this morning I discovered one of the speakers at this years Kendal Mountain Film Festival will be Alain Robert (one of Steve’s rock climbing heroes) so I promptly bought tickets for that. It is not until November but it will sell out fast I would imagine.
To top off the weekend I just watched Dirty Dancing. I can’t tell you how many times I watched this as a teen (and at the Mission Bay movie theatre at considerable cost I am sure as I went a number of times). They were having a Swayze movie weekend on telly….sigh, he was bliss.
Anyway, it is now nearing 11.30pm and I have work tomorrow. Night all.
Having seen the original movie and now this one I can say that I enjoyed them both for very different reasons. Is it rather lazy of me to admit that I haven’t actually read the book? Maybe I would like the novel even better if the trend of books never translating as well to movies would be believed.
Colin Firth was fabulous in a decidedly un-Darcy like role this time around. Ben Barnes plays Dorian Gray and with that face how can you not feel for his character. The difference between this movie and the original I saw was that I did feel sorry for Dorian this time as you saw his innocence slowly being eroded one decision at a time. You could feel a connection to the character and a compassion to spur him on to fight against his unscrupulous friend. The fight to hold onto his morals is fought in a losing battle. His morality continues to be eroded until depravity becomes the norm and his painting takes on the evidence of his degraded soul. I think also this is where this movie is set apart. It has a story to tell about the effects of your choices. Whereas the original movie I first saw years ago “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was more focused on his beauty this movie seems to highlight more of Dorian’s battle with his soul.
Graphic at times it was wonderfully vibrant in colour and decadence with a story to take away to ponder. 4 out of 5.
Opened in May of this year Steve recently found out about The Snow Centre and was keen to take a trip. I had some annual leave days up my sleeve, he had a day off and so today we took off for a day of skiing.
Our GPS, Susie, indicated it would take 2 hours but as we got nearer to London this became rather more like 3 hours. Oh well, thankfully we had the day all to ourselves.
The indoor center is lovely and new with a 30 metre width on the slope enabling more area to try some of those longer linked turns. What the heck am I talking about, I’m lucky to get to the bottom in one piece! We got a 2 hour ticket which comes at a reasonable price of 27 pound each as it is off peak. I needed about 1 hour of this to get my mojo happening.
Anyone who knows me well will know that I am rather risk adverse. Ok, so extremely risk adverse. Maybe this comes from my OHS background..this leads to that, which creates this = consequence. Manage the consequence by managing the risk. When you strap planks to your feet and point these downhill on a steep, slippery slope this would indicate a high probability of injury. Injury = pain, I dislike pain intensely…you see where I am going with this.
Maybe I continue to do it is because in my head I see a far more competent skier who can do amazing jumps, tight turns and laughs in the face of danger…then I wake up in a cold sweat and strap on the planks anyway!
So, here are some pics from today. Thankfully I made it home in one piece with thanks to my incredibly competent ski buddy who stuck with me, gave me advice and didn’t get too frustrated with me even when I finally listened to his advice at the very end and would have to agree that apparently going faster does make turning easier. Who knew! Maybe I should try this theory in the Rover.
This movie had so much potential, a thriller, based in the beauty of Antartica, Kate Beckinsale and Tom Skerrit. Tragically, it was not to be.
It failed on so many fronts, where should I start? Actually if I was to say that the first 5 minutes contains a shower scene of the incredibly gorgeous Kate Beckinsale ,this to me sums it all up. Basically, get your moneys worth here boys ’cause the rest is a waste of time. I’m still coming up with more plot holes and “what the heck was that about” moments and it is two days later! Seriously happy if I never see this again. 1 out of 5 (’cause I feel sorry for the actors).
Rather too bizarre for me I think. It left me a bit confused as to what the heck it was on about. Is it just a ride of a movie or were they trying to say something about how we treat others? The story in short as outlined on www.imdb.com – “An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.”
It sits within the genre of Starship Troopers (which I love) with the explosions and goop. It was captivating and well done but I probably won’t bother seeing it again. 2 out of 5.
I just noticed that it has been ages since I blogged about any of the movies we have seen. True, lately the movies have been a bit sparse in coming out but we have been.
I really enjoyed A Perfect Getaway with Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil series), Steve Zahn (Sahara), Timothy Olyphant (Die Hard 4.0). A couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii take a remote hike only to become concerned they are being stalked by psychopaths. Hawaii looks amazing and the story, although a bit slow really gets going about 3/4’s into it. I was rather surprised. 2.5 out of 5.