Officer, There’s Snow in My Palm Tree

We’ve been repeatedly told that the chance of snow at Christmas is so small we should forget about it. But after a week of increasingly cold temperatures, it all turned rather icy and snowy on Thursday.

Scott had the joy of a 30 mile drive home after a work Christmas dinner (at the Ship Inn in Barnoldy-Le-Beck) over the Wolds in constant snow with lots of wind and icy roads. ‘Twas an interesting drive, but quite slow.

Friday brought with it some sleet and soft hail showers and in the afternoon the snow started. Most of it was blowing away, but at times it was heavy enough to stay on the ground. By the time Scott finished work, his car was covered in almost 2 inches of snow. After scraping the snow and ice off the windows he headed home, again with snow falling steadily but this time the roads were covered in snow and the going was quite slow – down to 10 mph on the A16 where the traffic normally runs at 65 to 70.

The kids had had a ball playing around in the light cover of snow at home, but we were all pleasantly surprised to wake up on Saturday to a cover of about 3 inches. After breakfast jack and Scott headed off to their hair appointment. They took 15 minutes to get the car clear for the 5 minute drive, only to find the hairdressers had decided not to open after all. So, back home and after a cuppa we all donned our warm jackets and outdoor gear and headed off for a walk to St Botolph’s, a disused but still maintained church about 2 miles away.

It was a joy walking through the snow over the local football field, through paths along the dykes and paddocks to the church. The building has been around since the 13th century and was used as a functioning church until the mid 1900s. It has no windows, doors or fittings, but still has a good roof and a lot of atmosphere. On the way back the kids enjoyed seeing how thick the ice was on the puddles (some up to an inch thick), so were glad to have their wellies on.

So, we may end up with a white Christmas after all. we hope so.

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Donna Nook Seals The Deal

The weekend after we went to the Lake District it was very very wet. So wet that a lot of the Lake District was flooded and washed away. Most of the teachers from our school were down south for a conference, so we had the Hill kids (Morgan and Connor) stay with us for the weekend while their parents (Graham and Sheryl) went to the conference.

Amongst lots of playing on the Wii and the Playstation the kids had a visit (with Scott) to Donna Nook to see the seals, which all come in to have their pups at this time of year. The weird thing is that Donna Nook is the local RAF bombing range, so they have to be very careful to make sure they don’t drop any bombs where they might endanger the seals. If you look carefully at a couple of the pictures you’ll see the bombing targets in the background, surrounded by hundreds of seals. Unfortunately the planes didn’t do any bombing practice while we were there.

It was quite wet, windy and more than a little smelly, as the seals give birth in the sanctuary and don’t clean up the mess. Very slack on their part, especially as they attract lots of terns (which we would call seagulls) who all want to get their bit of afterbirth. Who’d want to be a tern?

The authorities fence off the area lest visitors get attacked by rampant seals which are anywhere from half a mile to a couple of feet away.

We’re told that the seal numbers rise dramatically around Christmas, so there can be thousands of them out there with their new pups. Boxing Day is when heaps of Yorkshire people come over to see them and almost outnumber the seals. Guess where we won’t be going on Boxing Day.

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Birthday Season

November is birthday season in the Lovett family – Carolyn, Jack and Anna all having birthdays within 10 days.

With Carolyn and Anna both having birthdays ending with “0” we decided to make a big deal of it and have a weekend away in the Lake District to celebrate. So, having opened presents and had some flowers delivered from Scott’s sisters, we packed ourselves into the trusty Picasso (it’s important to note we don’t have the racing special) after school on Friday and headed off into the wild black yonder - it gets dark around 4pm at this time of year.

We headed up to Grimsby, hung a left towards Leeds, where we stopped at a motorway diner for birthday dinner - toasted sandwiches and coffee for us, KFC for the kids and it cost more than it would have if we had gone to our local pub for dinner! An hour or so further on and we were at the Sundial Guesthouse in Kendal, a lovely guesthouse right on the main drag about 10 minutes walk from the town centre.

After a leisurely cooked English breakfast, we headed for Windermere, but took a wrong turn and ended up taking the scenic route through Crosthwaite. And it was actually a very scenic route! At Windermere we spent some time looking through the World of Beatrix Potter, which was absolutely amazing with recreations of all the Peter Rabbit stories. We were all quite taken with it. We followed this up with a cream tea in their cafe, served by the first Australian we have encountered over here, apart from people we already knew in Australia.

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We then donned our wet weather gear and started walking up Orrest Head, which gives spectacular views over lake Windermere. The rain stopped just before we reached the top, so we had a decent look at the view. At least we did for about 2 minutes, when the cloud started closing in below us.

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So back on with the wet weather gear and we headed back to Windermere where we had a very yummy afternoon tea at Lazy Daisy’s Lakeland Kitchen and looked through some shops before heading back to Kendal. After a lot of searching around for somewhere reasonable and family-friendly we stopped for dinner at The Miles Thompson, which was very family-friendly, has good food and, most importantly, delicious desserts.

Sunday morning we stopped for a coffee and quick look around the beautiful village of Ambleside, headed up to Kirkstone Pass (it was fog-bound for us, but can look like this) then spent a couple of hours driving through the Yorkshire Dales back home.

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The Dales were beautiful – we stopped off at an art gallery which was having an open day kind of thing, serving everyone with fruit mince pies and mulled wine both warmed). Carolyn got a nice print as a birthday present there. We also stopped at Aysgarth in Wensleydale (that’s where they make Wallace’s favourite cheese) to look at the falls and to have afternoon tea at the Mill Race Teashop. Lovely. The teashop is right next to the old Yore Mill which, while no longer a working mill, still has water pouring through it.

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All in all it was a really good time away in a very scenic part of England – we’ll go back once it recovers from the floods that come the weekend after we were there.

Some Catching Up

It’s been a while since our last post. Scott’s laptop (which has all the blogging stuff on it) had to go away for a quick repair which should have taken a few days, but ended up being 7 weeks. It’s back now, so off we go.

We’ll cover some of these in separate posts, but here are some of the things that have been happening since we last posted:

• The kids started back at school for the new school year, with Jack moving to the Upper Learning Centre (like moving up to high school). They’re both doing really well academically and building good friendships.
• Carolyn started at school too, as the art teacher. She teaches 2 classes each week and teaches a couple of the students individually in art and other subjects.
• Scott started volunteering with The King’s Outreach (a non-profit organisation attached to our church) setting up IT systems for them.
• We surrendered our Australian driving licences and now have pink GB licences. We had to go to Lincoln to do this, so used it as a chance to spend the day there while the kids were at school. We had a very enjoyable time looking around the old part of the city, visiting the cathedral and lunching in a Tudor tea-room.
• We’ve been getting involved in the Rural Impact ministry at church.
• We’ve had a couple of trips to Mabelthorpe.
• We’ve had a visit from the Brands, who introduced us to Marks and Spencer Mulled wine. It goes well with fruit mince pies. Really well.
• We’ve been to see the seal colony at nearby Donna Nook. They come in to have their pups on the RAF bombing range each year.
• Birthday season has come and gone, with all but Scott having birthdays in a 10 day period. We had a weekend in the Lake District to celebrate. Fortunately we were there the weekend before it all flooded and washed away.
• Scott got a job, which means we can stay in England. He’s working in Grimsby doing IT support for Cardsave, a company that provides credit card facilities for businesses and non-profit organisations.
• We bought a second car (a Ford Ka) for Scott’s 23 miles-each-way commute.
• We think that the sun must be unwell. It’s started sleeping in till about 8 and then it goes to bed around 4 every day. We’re hoping it gets better in time for summer.

More soon.

Fun Down South

A busy week this week as we headed south for a few days to London and Southampton with some other interesting places on the way.

We piled ourselves, our luggage and the indispensible satnav into the Citroen on Monday morning and drove down to Cambridge. Once we eventually found somewhere to park, we walked down to the river Cam (surviving about a million “punt ride” offers) for a nice picnic lunch.

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Back in the car to our hotel in Greenwich, then Monday afternoon and most of Tuesday in London. We visited as many Monopoly places as we could find (we’ll have to find more next time) and managed to fit in a couple of hundred tube rides, a visit the Victoria and Albert Museum and a wander through Fortnum and Mason, a plush and expensive store on Piccadilly. We also got to revisit the rose garden in Hyde Park which was even more beautiful than it was back in May.

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We all enjoyed being in London again and catching up with our friends the Brands for dinner and a trip to Canary Wharf on the DLR.

On Wednesday morning we set off for West Kennett Long Barrow, a Neolithic tomb which you can actually go into - after a long climb against incredibly strong winds if our experience is anything to go by! Next stop was Avebury where there is a stone henge around the town. You can walk amongst and even touch the stones, unlike that other henge on the Salisbury plain. We discovered that eating anything sweet outside at this time of year will attract loads of wasps then set off in the rain to see the Cherhill chalk horse and a quick stop at Stonehenge.

In the car again to Salisbury Cathedral, where we saw a statue commemorating the life of Evelyn Lovett, wife of Bishop Ernest Neville Lovett.

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Thursday was spent at Beaulieu (pronounced “Bewlee”) near Southampton. Owned by Baron Montagu, the estate was opened to the public in the 1950s to commemorate the involvement of the previous Baron Montagu in the development of the British motoring scene. It’s now run like a theme park with the National Motor Museum, an event arena, Victorian gardens, the Palace House and Beaulieu Abbey. The highlight for Jack was the “World of Top Gear” exhibition, which included many of the wacky creations of the tv series – they truly live up to the show’s motto “Ambitious but Rubbish”.

Another highlight of Beaulieu is the falconry show. It may sound strange, but having an owl with a 6ft wingspan fly 6 inches above your head is a thrilling experience.

Beaulieu:

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National Motor Museum:

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World of Top Gear:

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Friday saw us heading back home with a short stop in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare. After wandering about the town we were treated to a short but heavy downpour – something to help make the visit to Stratford so memorable!

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All in all, a very enjoyable trip despite the amount of bank-holiday traffic on the way home – the 90 miles of motorway and A-roads from Stratford-Upon-Avon to Lincoln took a bit over 3 hours.

What’s An Ep Worth?

Douglas Adams (the creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) joined with John Lloyd in the early ‘80s to produce The Meaning Of Liff, which provides humorous definitions of place names, mainly in the UK. 

According to “The Meaning Of Liff”, Epworth means:

“The precise value of the usefulness of epping (defined as the futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen). It is a little known fact that an earlier draft of the final line of the film Gone With The Wind had Clark Gable saying ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give an epworth’, the line being eventually changed on the grounds that it might not be understood in Cleveland.”

Epworth is actually in north-west Lincolnshire and was the boyhood town of the Wesley brothers:

• John – Anglican minister & the founder of Methodism.
• Charles – Anglican minister & prolific hymn writer.
• Samuel - a well-known composer and organist in the 17th century.

You can read more about the Wesleys at this web site.

We spent the day on Wednesday looking around the town, their home (The Old Rectory) and the church where their father was the rector – St Andrews.

 

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When Samuel Snr was appointed rector, the family was not accepted by the locals because he was appointed by King Charles, who was rather hated in the area. The locals didn’t give to the church because the king had appointed him, so his income was very low and he ended up in debtor’s prison a couple of times.

Their clock only had one hand - not because they couldn’t afford the minute hand, but because each hour was divided up into 15 minute segments, so a minute hand was not necessary.

John’s ministry took him all over the country preaching. When he returned to Epworth he was not allowed to preach at St Andrews so he preached outside from his father’s tomb. Each year on Wesley Day (a Sunday near the 25th of May) the minister of the Wesley Memorial Church in Epworth preaches from Samuel Wesley’s tomb at St Andrews.

Why the picture of the Red Lion pub? It seems that King James I “felt the diplomatic need to order the display of the red lion of Scotland in public places all over England to show who was boss; obviously not a man to bear a historic grudge. This would have convinced many a publican a red lion hanging outside his pub was a good idea.”

Settlements, Amusements and Battlements

Firstly, sorry about the quality of the pictures this time. We forgot to take our camera with us (twice) so the photos were taken on our phones and they’re just not as good.

We had a big start to the week with our boxes of things finally arriving from Australia. We now have the kids’ toys and games, books, our IT gear (alright, Scott’s IT gear), our own doonas, kitchen things, art supplies and, best of all, our piano and guitar.

And a nice end to the week with us being able to watch our niece Meredith’s wedding to Dave in Sydney live on the internet. At 3 o’clock on Saturday morning. It felt a little like one of my recurring dreams – the one where I’m sitting in church and suddenly realising I am wearing only pyjamas. At least nobody in the church could see us. If you want to find out how they streamed the wedding to the internet go to http://www.ustream.tv/mobile.

But, you’re probably wondering about the title, huh?

Settlements

Man, the bureaucracy here is amazing! One example is our internet provider.

• I called them to organise phone and broadband and was cut off half way through the application process. I called back a minute later and completed the application with a different operator, who advised that the connection would be in place in two weeks time on July the 1st.
• I called them one week later to check on progress and was told that the application wasn’t complete, so I needed to do it again. Then they told me that it would be 2 weeks and no, they can’t make it any quicker even though it was their fault.
• A router arrived in the post a couple of days later.
• A technician came out on the appointed day to connect the line – yay! So I called them to find out what time the internet would be connected only to be told there was a problem but it should be connected within 24 hours.
• The next day (Friday) I called again and was told that someone would call back. Didn’t happen.
• I called again on the following Monday and was told that the application had been cancelled so I needed to do another one. A little peeved by this stage I went through another application and was told it would take 2 weeks to connect and the system wouldn’t allow them to do it any sooner. More peeved now, I asked to speak to have a complaint registered as it would mean that the connection was going to go in 5 weeks after I first applied – they said they’d see what they could do.
• They called me back to say that they couldn’t change anything (so the connection would still go live in 2 weeks, no sooner)  but would look at some kind of “goodwill gesture” once the connection went live.
• The Friday before it was due to go live (and 44 days after I first did the application) I connected the equipment to the line and turned it on. Hey presto, the internet connection was live. So much for not being able to do it any earlier than the 14 days!
• They did eventually call back to sort out the goodwill gesture, so we’ll get a couple of months of free internet. Better than nothing, although later that week another router arrived. We don’t know why.

We had a similar issue with our car insurer which thankfully got sorted out (after 3 weeks of hassling) as it would have cost us an extra £800 per year. Did I mention that it’s the same company as the internet provider?

Breathing slowing, rage subsiding.

Amusements

On Sunday we had a day down at the seaside resort town Mablethorpe where we had some time on the lake and had fun at the amusement park.

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Battlements

On Wednesday we travelled down to Tattershall Castle. Built by Ralph Cromwell (the Lord Treasurer) in 1434, it was one of the first castles to be built of brick instead of stone. 6 stories high, its foundation walls are 15 feet thick and it has a real moat. While it had the usual castle defences it was really only built to show how rich and important Cromwell was.

It was bought by Lord Curzon in 1911 and he spent an obscene amount to restore it and open it to the public. He left it to the National Trust when he died in 1925.

The castle has brilliant views of Lincolnshire – Lincoln Cathedral was clearly visible even though it is 20 miles away. It was quite surreal being in a 550 year old castle and having fighter jets almost constantly taking off a mile away from Coningsby RAF base. Surreal but enjoyable. If you look closely, you’ll just make out a couple of them in one of the photos.

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Of Isaac, Jane and A Real Shambles

After a couple of weeks of illness, we’ve been out and about a little over the past week or so, mainly around Lincolnshire but we did venture up to York as well.

Woolsthorpe Manor

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Located at Woolsthorpe-By-Colsterworth, a few miles south of Grantham, Woolsthorpe Manor was the home of Sir Isaac Newton. Soon after earning his degree from Cambridge in 1665, he returned to Woolsthorpe to avoid the plague and while there he formulated his theories on calculus, optics and the laws of gravitation. The famous apple tree is still there and the property is now owned by the National Trust.

Belton House

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This place was awesome. Built between 1685 and 1688, Belton House was supposedly a “modest country house” but in reality is a magnificent enormous place with beautiful formal gardens and the best adventure playground in the county. it was used as two separate houses (Rosings and Netherfield) in the BBC production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – the one with Colin Firth. Our National Trust membership was worth it just in visiting this place – we’ll be going back again.

York

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The old city of York is still enclosed by fortress walls and houses the beautiful York Minster, the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, the Multangular Tower (built by the Romans) and the famous and quaint street – The Shambles.

We enjoyed all of it, but mostly browsing through the shops in The Shambles, marvelling at the incredibly wonky-looking buildings which would contain no straight edges in sight and (completely out of character for the Lovetts) buying some tasty treats from the “Chocolate Heaven” chocolatier.

Little Furry Creatures, Art and Aussies

It’s all been happening here since our last update.

Fathers Day came and went fairly quietly. It’s a bit strange having it in June instead of September. The following weekend we all went out to Rushmoor Country Park near Louth. It’s a working farm that has a big range of creatures – sheep, goats, pigs, cows, horses, owls, falcons, ducks, geese, peacocks, squirrels, chipmunks, ferrets, baby bunnies, rats, guinea pigs and a wallaby.

 

The playground has an interesting swing set which is supposed to be a gorilla, but looks more like Homer Simpson with a gorilla mask.

We have recently taken possession of our first genuine Picasso. If only it was as impressive as it sounds – we didn’t buy a painting, we bought a car (a French one at that), so it’s goodbye to the faithful Astra rental car. We set out to get a Golf, Focus or Astra estate (they’re not called wagons over here) and ended up with one of these, although ours is purple (we think it’s silver but officially it’s purple):

As an artist Carolyn is a bit uneasy about a car being named after a famous artist, but it is slightly cube-shaped, so maybe it’s a French interpretation of cubist transport. Maybe it’s just not authentic enough – perhaps Picasso would have put both headlights on one side and the door on top.

So far it’s done well – although it’s not a big car it has heaps of room, the kids sit up nice and high, it has a good big boot for travelling and it’s pretty economical.

We’ve also been catching up with our first Aussie visitors. Carolyn’s sister (Janelle or Sam, take your pick), her husband Antony and their girls Jessie and Katie have been over in Derbyshire for most of July to help Antony’s grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday.

We had a day out with them at Sherwood Forest Park in Nottingham, they stayed a night with us at Saltfleet and we spent a couple of days with them last week in Chesterfield. While in Derbyshire we visited the Chesterfield Parish Church with its crooked spire:

The real story behind it is that they built the spire using unseasoned timber, which warped over a couple of years, but we like the popular myth – that the devil sat on it while resting on his way to Sheffield. Clearly Chesterfieldites had a problem with Sheffield at some stage.

We also went to Chatsworth House, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. We’re not sure why it’s not actually in Devonshire, but there you go.

It was used in the movie “The Duchess”, which was about a previous Duchess of Devonshire, played by Keira Knightley. It was also used as Mr Darcy’s house, Pemberley in the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. It's a hugely impressive building with gorgeous gardens, although we found the interior a bit dark and oppressive.

Still in Derbyshire, we spent a day at Castleton, which is a very quaint village with a ruined castle up on the hill.

 

Heading home from Derbyshire was a bit emotional, being our final goodbye to family - we won’t see them again for who knows how long.

Also last week, we had a visit from some Canberra Aussies. Jenny Armstrong and Tom & Annie Bishop have been in Russia for the biennial mission trip and have come to the UK for a bit of look-see before heading home, so they diverted to sunny (maybe that should be less-wet) Lincolnshire. It was great to catch up with them and to hear how the mission trip went. The people at the Crown Inn (at the corner of our street) weren’t all that sure what to do with seven Aussies at once, but we all enjoyed being together and eating our custard-submerged desserts.

More soon!

Settling At last

Well, we finally have our new home. Having been told by the estate agent that it would take 10 days to get into the house, we’re finally in and it only took 21 days!

Our third week in Lincolnshire has been fairly routine with the kids going to school each day. Our pastor told us on Sunday about the supermarket in Louth, so now we can get all the supplies we need – we just couldn’t find it in the main shopping area. Scott had to go to the doctor on Monday and was told he has “conn-joonc-teev-eye-tiss” so has been doing eye drops all week. All better now.

While the kids are at school, we’ve been having a look at some of the towns around here – Mablethorpe and Sutton-On-Sea are tourist seaside towns, very reminiscent of the Gold Coast in the 60s.

We’ve also spent a lot of time organising getting in to the new house. The agent and landlord have been pretty inflexible, demanding 6 months rent in advance, so we had to organise getting the funds transferred quickly. Everything managed to work properly for once and the money got here in time, so in we go.

The house is called The Old Granary – it’s 3 stories, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 garage (which has been turned into a laundry) and no shower. It should do us till the end of the year and at least we don’t need to worry about finding rent money each month. We expect the kids will be sick of sharing a room by then and we’ll probably be looking for something with a shower and closer to the school and/or work - whatever and wherever that turns out to be). Our things are finally on the ship, which is due to arrive in about 4 weeks. It’ll be nice to have more of our things with us – Carolyn is especially missing her electric piano and the kids are missing their toys.

We’re enjoying living in Saltfleet. It is a lovely little village with about 40 houses, a petrol station with general store, a Methodist chapel, 2 pubs and a caravan park. It’s about 10 minutes from the school at Manby and 20 minutes from Louth. We keep asking each other if we can believe that we’re really living in an English seaside village.

We will miss North Somercotes, though. It’s a lovely, quiet village, bigger than Saltfleet and has its own RAF base – Donna Nook is a great name for a RAF base, don’t you think? We spent a bit of time on the beach after school on Wednesday watching some F16s doing laps and practice bombing runs along the range (which is on the beach). It was fun and very loud.

We’ve discovered Freeview TV – 40+ digital TV channels. We get to see Grand Designs every night, Top Gear is on 4 times per day on “Dave” and if you miss it you can watch it an hour later on “Dave ja vu”. BBC News tells you the same thing every half hour and, like Australian news, has a lot of “we’re just as good as America” attitude.

Some Routine At Last!

After 9 weeks of living out of suitcases, routine is starting to come back to our lives.

Jack and Anna have finished their assessments at school and have started on their normal work. Here they are on their first day, posed with our rental Passat in front of the Granary (where we are staying in North Somercotes).

More routine on the way – we found out today that we have finally got the rental house we applied for in Saltfleet! It’s fully furnished, so all we need to organise is pillows, sheets and phone/internet connection. We hope we’ll be in the house by the end of next week.

Most of this week has been running errands, doing shopping, organising for our stuff to get shipped from Australia, etc. But, we have managed to visit Grimsby – it sits on the south side of the Humber and is best known as a fishing port. Elton John also recorded a song about it once, although I can’t remember how it goes. The trip to Grimsby was mainly to get hold of a mobile broadband thingy. It’s very slow here (no 3G reception) but at least we can send and receive email from this place.

Carolyn and I also went to Lincoln today to return the beloved Passat and exchange it for an Astra for the next 4 weeks. It’s a lot smaller than the VW but big enough to get us around until we can buy our own car. While we were there, we went to Lincoln cathedral, which is quite spectacular. It’s one of the 3 biggest cathedrals in the UK and one of the oldest – the original building was started in 1072.

Lincoln was originally a Roman fortress and was occupied by the Romans until the 4th century AD and there are many Roman, Norman and Tudor structures around the cathedral area, especially in Steep Hill Street.

 

 

 

 

 

We also had a very encouraging meeting this afternoon with the Pastor of the Kings Church Marshes, Stephen Franklin and his wife, Mandy. We spoke a lot about their vision for the church, our reasons for being here and common elements for each of our families on our journey to this area. They told us about how they had been led to pray for people from the North, South, East and West to come to the school and church – they were unsure about praying for people from the East as this area is on the East coast. As it turns out, that prayer was made on the day that we had felt led to change our destination from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire. More confirmation for us that we are in the place God wants us to be.

Finally, a couple of sunset pictures, looking over the fields across the road from our accommodation. Keep in mind that these were taken at 9.30pm. More Lincolnshire pictures soon!

 

Hi everyone. We were going to send pictures from Lincolnshire this time, but we haven’t taken any yet. Sorry.

So this week we have, in no particular order:

• Been to the beach at Mabelthorpe a couple of times. It’s a seaside holiday town with a huge beach (yes, with sand, not rocks) that stretches for miles. It’s kind of like the Gold Coast in the 60s – lots of fun parlours, gaudy shopfronts, etc. Still, there was sand and waves, so the kids have enjoyed it.
  
• Done laundry - fun for the whole family.
• Spent a morning in Lincoln getting a tyre replaced on the rental car. Even less fun than the laundry, although the kids found a pet shop that had unusual pets – things like Chinchillas, snakes, tarantulas. Lovely.
  
• Applied for a rental house and had no response from the landlord yet. Hopefully soon.
  
• Heard the final minute of the State of Origin over the internet. NRL gets absolutely no coverage here at all.
  
• Noticed that the only references to Australia on the news are to do with Kylie Minogue or the cricket team. Who the heck is Kevin Rudd?
  
• Watched the Labour Party, and the Prime Minister in particular, run headlong down the road to oblivion due to the expenses scandal. They had council and European elections yesterday and Labour is being well and truly booted out.
  
• Started the kids at school. They’re real little celebrities there, at least for the moment. Anna’s making friends with everyone, Jack’s taking his time but there is one boy his age with similar interests and sense of humour, so he will settle in over time. They’ve been doing assessments to see what level they are at in each subject and have done well so far. They will finish those tests today, we’ll get the last bits of uniform over the weekend and they’ll be into it properly from Monday.
  
• Got tired of living in a pub. It’s been pretty good, but we’re a bit sick of being limited to 2 rooms. We’re moving to a holiday house for a week in North Somercotes, which will cost about the same as the pub but we can cook for ourselves (instead of spending £30 each night on dinners) and we’ll have a living area. Hopefully by the time the week is up we will have the rental place organised. The pub has karaoke tonight, right below our rooms. If it’s anything like last week it will make us appreciate the holiday house even more.
  
• Started looking for work. It’s going to take some time by the look of things as Lincolnshire is not a centre for anything. Nothing to be anxious about, but I probably will be anyway.
  
• Spent some time looking around Louth, the nearest town. Eventually found a place that makes real cappuccinos and had dinner at a pub that was established in 1612.
  
• Tried some English food – Eccles cake, Cottage Pie (like Shepherds Pie), Flapjacks (more like a muesli slice than a pancake), Lincolnshire sausages
  Introduced the kids to the local wildlife – Jack’s been stung by a bumble bee and Anna by a stinging nettle.
  
• Registered with the National Health Service, so now we can have free health care. See above.
  
• Got our UK bank account organised and registered with a service that does transfers from Australia for a very low fee.
  
• Spent lots of time in our rental VW Passat Estate – like this but black and a diesel, which has done 600 miles (1000km) so far on ¾ of a tank.
  
  
  
  

More later, hopefully with pictures.

In Lincolnshire

Just catching you up on what we’ve been up to the past few days.

Wednesday

We got tickets for the open top bus tour around London and it happened to rain fairly heavily all day. Of course. It took us through lots of Monopoly places (Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Bond Street, Oxford Street, Fleet Street, Strand, Marylebone, Mayfair, Park Lane – I’m sure there were more), past the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park, St Pauls Cathedral, over London Bridge, the Tower Bridge to the Tower of London. We spent a couple of hours there, saw the Crown Jewels, instruments of torture (that was fun), an exhibition on Henry VIII and his armour/weapons etc. Then we headed up the Thames by ferry to Greenwich, where we met up with Rosanne and Jon Brand - Rosy auditioned me for the radio station back in 1995 and we worked together at the AFP for the past 2 years. They live in a townhouse right owned by one the members of the Hollies right at the Greenwich pier. Rosy took us through the Royal Naval College, the Royal Observatory and the Royal Park Greenwich. It’s a beautiful place and if we were to live in London, Greenwich would probably be the place. Macca’s for dinner – at least the kids liked it.

Rosy took this typical Lovett family portrait at the Royal Naval College – Anna at her best:

This is Anna and Jack straddling the Greenwich Meridian – one foot each in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres:


Thursday

We went for a big walk through Hyde Park, stopping at the Italian Gardens, the Peter Pan statue down the Serpentine via the Diana memorial fountain, watched some soldiers being trained to do show jumping (yes, with horses), through the rose garden (which is absolutely stunning), then through Green Park to Buckingham Palace (just in time to see the changing of the guard), then round to Westminster Abbey. We had planned to go in, but they charge £30 for a family just to go inside, so we ended up giving it a miss and moving on to the Houses of Parliament. Pretty worn out by this stage, so hopped on the Tube back to Paddington and had a nice dinner at an Italian place near the hotel.

Friday

Packed up, then while Carolyn took the kids to a park I headed off to Marble Arch (about 30 minutes walk) to collect the car. After a while I realised that I couldn’t find the place so I called them and discovered that it wasn’t at Marble Arch at all, but actually 2 blocks from our hotel. Happy.

Got the car (VW Passat) back to the hotel and packed it (glad we organised a wagon – oops, must call it an Estate!) then headed off toward Lincolnshire. Carolyn nearly had a fit when we drove past the Abbey Road studios and the crossing from the cover of Abbey Road. The rest of us had a good laugh. Had a lovely drive out of London past Peterborough and through lost of small congested towns (I probably won’t follow directions from Google maps again) to Manby in Lincolnshire, where we had a meeting with the school principal. The school looks ideal for the kids and we think they’ll thrive there. Rushed off from there to look at a house at Saltfleet – a converted granary, it’s fully furnished, so all we’d need to provide is sheets and pillows. There are other people interested in it, so we’re hoping we get it. Back to the school to continue the tour, then back to Saltfleet to settle in to the Crown Inn for the next week. They have karaoke on Friday nights - it’s very loud and the singing just gets worse as the night (and beer) goes on, but thankfully all those years of the kids going to sleep while we have band practice paid off and they went to sleep in a couple of minutes.

Saturday

In to Louth (the nearest town of significant size) to put in our application for the house and to have a look around. It’s quite a nice little town with a typical charming English town centre. We then headed North up the coast to Cleethorpes, just south of Grimsby. It’s a holiday town and was so busy we couldn’t find anywhere to park, so turned around and headed back to Saltfleet. We found a sign “To the Sea” so headed up there. At the end of the road we got out and walked up to the gate to find that the sea is about 2km further out – to get to it you have to walk across a lovely grassed area which was used for bombing training for the RAF in WWII, so is riddled with unexploded bombs, at least that’s what the signs say. There are lots of old RAF bases in the area, which were used as the launching areas for the Battle of Britain squadrons.

We headed south of Saltfleet to try to get to the beach, but ran out of time. More accurately, it got close to kick-off time for the FA Cup final, so we had to go back to the pub. The owner thought he’d do a promotion, so did up a sign saying that beer was £1 per pint off till the first goal. He was relieved when Everton scored the quickest ever cup final goal – after just 25 seconds.

We went in to Louth for dinner at a the Whyte Swanne Inn (established 1612) and I had the biggest roast dinner I’ve ever had.

Sunday

Up a bit later today then in to Louth to check out Hubbard’s Hills, a lovely park on the river which seemed to have attracted all of Louth this morning. 16 degrees and they’re out there in shorts (some of them even had the hankies tied at the corners for hats) thinking it’s hot. Back to the pub for a sleep in the afternoon, then we got ready to go to church. Thought we’d get an early dinner as church starts at 6pm, but do you think anywhere would be open serving food at 5? Of course not, so we ended up having Mars bars. We went to church at King’s Church Saltfleetby, which is pastured by the husband of the school principal. They meet in an old Anglican church building (it took them over a year to get council approval to use the building for a church!) and there were about 30 people there tonight as some are away for the half-term school break. The pastor spoke about how to know when God is leading you and I think he covered everything we’ve learned over the past year with getting here. It was very encouraging and confirmed for us again that we’re doing what God wants us to do. Still keen to find out how that is going to look!

This week, we’ll be organising school uniforms for the kids and hopefully signing a lease for the house in Saltfleet (we’re praying that we’ll get a quick answer from the landlord), possibly going up to York for a day and working out where to stay after this week – the Crown Inn is nice enough, but we’re keen to go somewhere else till we get the house.

Made It!

Hi everyone,

Sitting in McDonalds and about to run out of battery on the laptop, so need to be quick.

We have made it here! Our flight from Sydney was delayed over an hour, so we ended up having to race from it to the next flight at Abu Dhabi. Had fish & chips for dinner (what else) and a very early night to try to overcome jetlag, which largely worked.

We went for a walk down through Hyde Park (saw the most beautiful English Garden on the way) to Buckingham Palace

and happened to get there just as the rehearsal for the Trooping of The Colours for the Queen’s Birthday. Nice surprise.

We had an appointment to organise our bank account and national insurance number (like the tax file number). The kids enjoyed the ride on the double-decker bus to get there and the tube to get back to the hotel. The hotel turns out to be about 100 metres form the one we stayed at back in 1996.

More soon.