The Holidays part 3 and beyond....

So ‘down South’ we went. We stopped on the way at TK Maxx, Tesco and also to buy some shower gel that you can’t buy in Austria. Friday night was spent catching up with Pops and Pam, with some birthday presents and a belated Xmas present (thank you to my secret Santa), and then a special trip to Spurs restaurant in Staines…yum yum.

Saturday was another South African themed trip, to a little South African shop, where we spent 35 pounds on yummy chocolates, and Nik Naks, (luckily I can buy some items at my work’s commissary) – oh and also a fresh Melktert (milk tart)….mmmmm.

We stopped off at a ‘fish’ shop….not an eating establishment, but to buy some new fishes for the Pattison’s aquarium…..I fell in love with a little Nemo, and I am seriously thinking about having 2 little fish at home. We relaxed with the Pattison’s on Saturday, while watching the chickens in the garden jump for minced meat (thinking they were worms), and caught up with Georgie and Anton (who, may I remind them, will visit us in Austria soon). Saturday night was an hour’s drive to the Luton Premier inn for a cheap night’s stay, but welcomed as we had to get up at 5.00am to catch our flight at 7am. We arrived in Slovakia in the morning, and did a quick shop at the Slovakian Tesco’s……doesn’t really resemble English Tesco’s, but has so much more than Austrian supermarkets. Stocked up on goodies, we headed home to give our boys and girls so love.

Last weekend, we started our spring clean, or as Ian calls it, disinfecting the house. Two whole rooms were ‘disinfected’ and items thrown away. The rest of the house was cleaned on Sunday, with a trip to Hardegg to make sure the heating was working, and a little chat with Leo, the friendly neighbour, who I am beginning to understand more and more……his wife was ill, Austria is expensive and said that a man without a beer belly is a cripple! At least that is what I think he said. So all in all a successful weekend of cleaning, cooking, shopping, cat brushing and more organizing. Sunday Ian and I made a Milk tart, which was scrummy…not sure how many points that is on weightwatchers though, and then followed by ironing and packing for our 4am start on Monday to take Ian to the airport. I arrived at work at 6.30am, where I am currently writing this, as I can’t officially start work until 7am. So I thought I would keep myself occupied from not sleeping on my desk. I am definitely leaving at 4pm today to go home to sleep….. Ian is back on Tuesday.

This weekend, disinfecting the house started again. The office was ripped apart and all paperwork was organised. The recycling bin is now full of paper and we still have another month before it is collected. So the office is starting to resemble a room again, and I may even feel like actually sitting in it occasionally. All PCs were upgraded to windows 7, and a new router was installed. After a few hours of Ian cursing his PC, we had a fully operating network, where streaming video actually worked. In fact for the first time in 10 years, all PCs can see each other. A quick trip to the Czech Republic was made on Saturday, where we bought some new Reebok trainers, after we found out all shoes were ½ the outlet price. Ready to start the upgrade from walking, to trotting, to jogging and then finally running.

Czech Republic - Airplane restaurant and a big globe, with some dragons and knights (Don't ask me why).

19 Euros for a visit to Moulin Rouge....enough said!

You can but full size plastic cows in the Czech Republic.

The holidays part 2

Thursday was a day of fun and Richard's birthday (yes 3 birthdays in 3 days). We relaxed a while in the lounge, and I tried my best to annoy my sister, without success.
The best part of the day was our 75 minutes of lazer combat. Richard, Ian, Sam and I ran around the woods with our £1000 lazer guns trying to shoot our enemies, which included many 6-10 year olds.
My mum and dad were watching with amusement and catched some great photos.

Always time for a quick pose during war.
Ian trying to be a sniper.
Me hiding behind the Ammo shed.
The 4 shooters at the end of combat. As you can see I still had
my gun and helmet, I like to think that was because
I was better than the men and wasn't killed.

After combat we did even more exercise and walked the long way home across the forest to the house. Our last night was spent eating Italian food for Richard's birthday.

To commemorate our final night, Georgie decided she would have explosive vomiting during the night. Poor Pauline and Richard had a very upset baby, with a travel cot covered in puke and a very stinky bedroom......Everybody managed to get to sleep around 3am.
Friday was goodbye day, with an early start to trek to the car and bring it back for packing. We all left and said farewell to one another, which led Ian and I onto the next part of our trip 'down South'.

The holidays part 1

Well it has been a while since the last blog, and I actually have things to talk about.
We arrived in the UK on a busy Saturday, after the usual hassle free, yet slightly squashed, Ryanair flight. We picked up our hire car and drove through the usual road works to Derby to have a little shop. We found a new shop that we walked around in awe.....Poundland. So much to buy for a pound. In fact by the end of the holiday, we had been to 3 poundlands and bought lots of interesting items.
We stayed the night at the Hilton (sale prices), where I fell asleep at 8.30pm for 12 hours and left Ian slightly bored. Sunday we had our English breakfast, but counted our WW points and only had a miniture fry up.
We drove 'up North' on Sunday, with a quick trip to TK Maxx, to Stevie and Tay's house, where we chilled, chatted, ate and watched a film. We always love visiting Pudsey, to visit our bruv and sis, see the town we used to live in and chill on our old sofas!
Monday morning was another early start, with a birthday trip to the helicopter shop for Ian, where he bought some helicopter goodies (which I won't try to explain). We then met my family at Castleford outlet village for some more shopping and a pizza hut buffet. It was the first time ever that I only ate 2 slices of pizza and salad at a pizza hut buffet.
We then drove down to Sherwood forest in 3 full cars and drove around the maze of centre parks to find our lodge. A lovely 4 bedroomed, 4 bath house with a games room including a PS3 and a pool table. Unpacking took place quickly and the cars had to be returned to the car park, as it was a no car zone for the rest of the week. Tuesday, my 34th birthday was spent walking for miles through the forest and watching Sam quad biking.


My birthday treat was 3 hours of relaxing in a spa, with many different steam rooms, saunas and relaxing rooms and an outdoor pool....It was fabulous.
Wednesday was Ian's birthday, where I sneaked a facial in the morning, and we walked and walked for the rest of day, with a quick game of pool with sam, and enjoyed a birthday meal at night.
When we first arrived in the lodge, there was a huge chalkboard by the entrance and so I wrote everybody's birthday on it. The cleaners obviously saw it and left a Thortons Birthday cake for the 2 boys and 1 girl. Little did they know, it was for a 41, 34 and 32 year olds! oops