The jungle comes to Britain

Back in November we had some students from Quebec staying with us for a couple of nights. One morning, one of them returned from a walk to the shop and reported seeing a green parrot fly overhead. I was skeptical until Dan piped up, admitting that he too had seen a parrot or two roaming our neighbourhood. I soon began to see glimpses of these long tailed, bright green parrots high in the trees on my jogs.

Today, on my noontime canal walk, I was startled when I came upon a lovely green parrot, with red beak and a pinkish ring around its neck dangling from a branch over the river Wey not 10 feet from where I stood. He happily posed for my camera (though my camera phone doesn't zoom, so you have to click on the picture to get a better view!) and lazily bounced on his branch, until he and his partner (hiding from view nearby) began to climb and hop from branch to branch higher and higher until finally taking flight, leaving me in awe and late for work.

Such a sight seems so out of place in England, so after scurrying back to my desk I decided to google 'wild parrots uk' and was amazed to find this article acknowledging a rising parrot and parakeet population in the UK and primarily in this area: Wild Parrots Settle in Suburbs

Apparently they are making their way from Asia and finding homes across Europe posing a threat to the smaller native birds. What will this changing climate reveal next?!

Winter in England

I've been working at a temp job for the past couple of weeks and the best part of the job is the proximity to the canals in Weybridge (which is the next town over from us where we are both working at the moment). On my hour lunch breaks, I change into my boots and wander along the canals, enjoying the birds, beauty, and luxurious homes along with the fresh air and much needed exercise after a morning of sitting behind a desk.

However, my daily walk was not possible yesterday as the country was blanketed in a foot of snow. The most England has seen since 1991! The landscape quickly transformed from muddy but quite green to white in a few hours causing chaos everywhere. The city shut down. Seeing snow like this once in a couple decades does not warrant snow tires, ploughs, or shovels. No one was prepared for it. Unaccustomed to winter driving, people slide passed us nervously. It took us twice as long to get to work and fortunately many people stayed home. We were both allowed to leave work a little early and went out to enjoy the snow. Our neighbourhood had been peopled by snowmen. Every corner and building had one. Neither of us had made a snowman since we were children, but as it is such a novelty here that the enthusiasm was contagious and we decided to join in.

Afterwards we treated ourselves to drinks and dinner in front of the fire at our local pub. Click here to see the contrast between yesterday and last week.

Carmina Burana at the O2 arena

Since Christmas we've been laying low at home for the most part. We've been in London every Sunday for church and to visit friends, but otherwise hanging out in Walton, with the exception of one outing this past weekend.

For Christmas, Dan gave me two tickets to see Carmina Burana at the O2 Arena (AKA The Millennium Dome). We enjoyed some sushi at one of the many restaurants at the venue before show. "Carmina Burana--Monumental Opera" was spectacular with fire works, elaborate costumes, and of course, intense music. This is their blurb:

"The O2 launches the Monumental Classics Series with Carmina Burana in January 2009. Franz Abraham, the creator of the production, brings Carl Orff’s masterpiece to life with over 250 performers - including the world-renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brighton Festival Chorus and Youth Choir, as well as dancers, actors, and singers. The dramatic staging has been created by Walter Haupt, a long standing close friend of Orff himself, and features a giant set, previously only seen outside and in stadiums, sensational light projections and fireworks."

Thanks honey!

Merry Christmas from London!

Wishing all our beloved friends and family a very merry Christmas.



We are enjoying a simplified Christmas in England with Dan's parents Rose and Al, his sister, Lesha and her partner, Sean. Happily everyone arrived safely in the last couple of days, however only Lesha arrived with luggage, which means that most of our Christmas presents, stockings, and other festive items are somewhere between here and Halifax. Robin had some stocking stuffers for everyone, so we decided to improvise this morning and used oven mitts, hats and a cosmetics bag as make-shift stockings (see the picture of these odd stockings under the tree below--notice the mushrooms in the background, as there was no more room in the fridge). For fun, Lesha wrapped up some random cookies and things from the hotel across the street where they are staying this week. And we happened to have bought clothes for each of the people that are without their suitcases, so they were able to change shirts! We enjoyed a beautiful Ukrainian Christmas dinner tonight, perogies, kutya, cabbage, and all, as well as a lot of laughter. It's been a very happy Christmas for us despite the missing items. We hope that you and yours are having as much fun together as we are. We'll see you in the New Year!

Love from Robin, Dan, Rose, Al, Lesha, and Sean

Oslo: Our First Random European City Weekend Jaunt (of hopefully many)

After a long four months apart, we were happily reunited in time to plan our first random European city weekend jaunt. Destination: Oslo, Norway. You might ask why we would choose to go to an almost equally expensive city to London, seeing as how Oslo is forth most expensive city in the world; next to London at third. It's also a city further North than London and winter is quickly approaching. Well, we had a couple of reasons. One was that our sister-in-law Kate’s brother, Paul, is doing a semester in Oslo and we thought it would be fun to visit him. Also, we wanted to choose a city in a country that neither of us had been to, and as Dan’s been to most major cities in Europe, that left us with few options. Frankly, though, Norway just seemed like a pretty cool place to visit.

Despite the cold and the ridiculously priced… well, everything… we managed to see some pretty neat things. We flew Ryan Air and landed just outside of Sandefjord, which is just under a two-hour bus ride from Oslo. We were amazed to see how similar the landscape was to our familiar Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with the ragged coastline, colourful houses, and little fishing villages. Once in Oslo, we hopped on the tram and headed to our hosts’ flat in the trendy neighbourhood Grünerløkka.

To help keep costs down and have a more enriching experience we decided to try couchsurfing.com. We joined the website and requested to stay on the couch of a couple named Linn and Brom, who happily welcomed us into their home. We learned a little about Norway and Norwegians (such as the fact that Norway is so wealthy that they had a surplus of $360 billion last year!) Also, Linn is Sami, who are an indigenous people from the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The Sami are known for herding reindeer, which is still practiced by a small minority. Brom is from central Norway, near the Arctic Circle. They also have the two most beautiful cats you’ve every seen, Pixel and Stella. Luckily, Dan's allergies didn't act up too badly.

On our first night, Linn took us to see a couple of local bands. She works for the venue and was able to get us in free. The music was great, and we absolutely loved the band, Katzenjammer. They're a female quartet, who rotated among 12 instruments between each song, featuring the accordion, mandolin, guitar, piano, balalaika bass, glockenspiel, trumpet, kazoo, melodica, drums, banjo and xylophone. They also took turns on vocals and had a guest violinist. It was a really, really fun concert. Check it out for yourself:

On our second night, we feasted on smoked trout, warm bread, salad and dilled potatoes with Linn and Brom. They were great hosts and we will definitely couch surf again on another weekend jaunt.

Over the three days in Oslo we walked all over and saw some fabulous sites, including the Nobel Peace Museum, the Munch Museum, the National Gallery, the Norwegian Royal Palace, the Vigeland Sculpture Park with it's dozens of bronze and granite nude sculptures, the Akershus Fortress and its museum detailing the Norwegian Resistance to the Nazis, and the Museum of Architecture, which features the plans of other European museums. We also had lunch with Paul and visited his school in the north of the city, which is in an incredible building. We sampled Norwegian fish and brown cheese, and Dan sampled the expensive beer (about $12 per bottle). And we shopped a wee bit at the massive complex of Aker Brygge.

We loved how the pubs, restaurants, and cafés not only provide outdoor seating and tables for smokers or dog walkers, they also leave blankets on each chair to keep them warm. We enjoyed sitting outside a café on our last day and sipped cappuccino while snuggled up with warm woollen blankets and watched the city bustle by.

We’ve posted our pictures on facebook. Enjoy them here.

It's Amazing What Technology Can Do

So, it's been a month since Robin left to get her visa, and I have to keep myself entertained somehow. I put together a few slideshows of some of the pictures we posted earlier set to music:


Upon arrival in England


Visiting London, Bath, Cornwall, and Portsmouth with Robin's parents


Driving to Paris, Vimy, and Canterbury

Any comments on whether or not you like these slideshows or facebook albums would be much appreciated :-)

Driving to Cornwall, Paris, and Points In-between

So, what a fantastic few weeks it has been. We have seen new parts of this country, and for a couple of days we were even able to step outside of it. The whole trip was such an adventure that it is hard to determine where to begin. Taking the advice of Lewis Carroll, I shall begin at the beginning and go on till I come to the end.

Robin’s parents, Rob and Chris, arrived at the beginning of June, and during their first week, we got out of the city and took our first, and most extensive, of three road trips. As you can see from the map below, we covered a lot of ground in just three days:


View Larger Map

We started off by visiting the Uffington White Horse, a massive chalk outline that dates back to the Iron Age. No one is really sure why the native Britons carved this drawing into the mountain, but they sure did have style :-)

Our first B&B, just outside of Bath was a little more out of the way then we had expected. The roads were so narrow, that I was scratching both sides of my car with branches at the same time. And to add to the situation, it was not on a one-way road. You really become intimately connected with the width of your vehicle when driving in the English countryside. And to top it all off, Rob was almost attacked by a watch goose. We toured around Bath for the evening, and then again the following day. Without a doubt, Bath is my favourite spot outside of London, and next to Edinburgh, it is the most beautiful city in Britain. In fact, I often wonder why we didn’t move out here instead.



For the rest of the trip, we drove down to Cornwall, a rarely explored and often misunderstood part of the country. Relating more to the Welsh than the English, Cornwall has its own language and culture, and they are very proud of their unique distinctions. While there, we went to Tintagel Castle, the suspected birthplace of King Arthur; The Eden Project, a massive biodome built out of a quarry; St. Michael’s Mount, a castle built on a tidal island; and the coastal town of St. Ives. Fantastic all!

On the way home, we had lunch after winding our way through the narrow streets of Dartmoor National Park in Devon before standing before the megalithic stones of Stonehenge. And since no trip to Stonehenge is complete without visiting the awesome cathedral in Salisbury, we had dinner next to the Avon River and toured around the beautiful medieval town.

After a few days of sightseeing around London, including a fantastic performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, we went for our second trip out of the city. This time, we started off at Windsor Castle, the weekend home of the Queen, which is really just around the corner from where we live in Walton. After we were told that most of the Castle was closed, to prepare for Lizzy's birthday bash, we decided to drive down to the south coast and visit the Historical Dockyard of Plymouth. We stood on the decks of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's flag ship, HMS Victory, and took a moment of silence on the spot of where he was stuck down by a sniper's bullet during the Battle of Trafalgar.


Windsor Castle


HMS Victory

And speaking of Nelson, the following day, we took our third, and most ironic, roadtrip from our meager flat to the City of Lights. First we had to drive to the channel tunnel, cross through customs, and drive our car onto the train. It took about 35 minutes before we arrived in France, and after we all shared a baguette and some French cheese in a small town, we drove right to our hotel. For two days, we wandered around Paris, climbed the Eiffel Tower and Arc d'Triumphe, and even took a river cruise down the Seine, courtesy of our new friend at Hotel Le Globe, Phillipe. On our way home, we made a short stop to pay tribute to the Canadian soldiers who fought at Vimy Ridge, one of whom was Robin's great-grandfather.



We ended our whirlwind tour in Canterbury; the spiritual home of the Church of England. We wandered around the old city, and stopped into a 500 year old tea house before heading back to real life.

So, in about a week and a half, we drove about 1500 miles (2500 km), ate Cornish pasties and drank Cafe au Lait. We walked through over 2000 years of European history and stood on the battlefield where our nation's identity was born. If anyone still questions why I wanted to move here, I sincerely hope that you now have your answer.

The full albums of our travels can be found by clicking here for England and here for France.