Fi's blog

New site

2008-06-29T14:01:00.001Z

Having been inspired by some friends blogs, we've got sorted and now have a new site which is almost up running & updated! More photos, interesting stuff, being added gradually...
it is nf-williams.blogspot.com

2007-11-05T13:18:00.000Z

Have been having some great weekends over the last couple of months!! (Haven't updated this very recently!)

Pete came and visited us in Bath for a couple of weeks while he was in the UK, which was great! And a great excuse for me to see some of the sights in Bath that I hadn't got round to seeing yet! It was a week of visitors, as we also met up with the McGregors (Ange's mum and dad) and their friends, who were all over on the rugby world cup tour. They were in Bath for a couple of days, and then we met up with them for a drink before the quarter final which we went to as well in Cardiff!

The Crescent on a beautiful day

Roman baths

Us at the millenium stadium (before the game). Amazing stadium, felt like we were so close to the ground!

Another weekend we went to visit Westonbirt Arboretum, which I've been meaning to go to for ages... as it happens, it was good we waited til autumn to go, as it was amazing to see all the beautiful autumn colours.
And another weekend Nath organised a surprise trip to the Eden Project, which was great. Just an amazing site. Wandered about the domes, and just had a pretty chilled out weekend.

Bensons

2007-08-29T11:45:00.000Z

We went to visit the Bensons (Mike's my cousin once removed) in Sussex for the long weekend, which was great - lovely to have quite a low key one - we went for a few walks and just hung out for a bit.

On the way there we went past stonehenge - which was quite funny actually, to just see it sitting in a field like that

We went for a walk up on the South downs, and came across some Paragliders.

We also went with Michael and Mary to church, went for a pub lunch, had some swims in the neighbours pool, and went for a walk in the 'forest' (with no trees!).

And on the way home we decided on a whim to stop by Brighton (half an hour out of the way) - which was fun, and funny to see the stereotypes confirmed!

We also stopped at a random village fair, where there were lots of old cars.

Dublin

2007-08-16T11:13:00.000Z

Ahh, I'm falling seriously behind on these. OK, Dublin...

We were staying in Trinity College right in the middle of the city, which was great, and were in one of the tourist attractions which we later did a tour around!

Did the obligatory guiness brewery tour - which was really very well done, lots of interactive video presentations and very interesting... and on the top floor got to pour our own guiness and went up to a bar with an amazing view over the city.

We also did the Jameson Whiskey tour... which also included a free glass at the end to taste test.

Trinity college where we stayed.

Just sort of wandered about the city and around the temple bar area. Good fun.

Nana's visit

2007-08-10T11:29:00.000Z

Nathan's Nanna came to visit us for a week or so - unfortunately I had to work so couldn't go up to London with them but we did lots in Bath as well...

We went and did one of those red bus tours of Bath, went out to the river, went out for fish and chips, and went to the Raven for a pub meal, they came and met me in Bristol for lunch one day and went to the Wesley chapel, and we all just spent lots of time together at one place or another which was really lovely.

We had a bit of a bbq at my place on Sunday, so she could meet some of our friends...

Topsham

2007-08-09T11:41:00.000Z

Topsham is the place I stay at when I am down in the Exeter office for 2days together. As much as I complain about having to go away with work, it's one of the nicer places to have to go to - it's a really cute little town, and I do quite enjoy being there, when I'm not missing out on things back in Bath.

Anyway, one time when I was down there I rounded a corner on the way back from dinner and came across this:

Random.

Some particular kind of Morris dancers apparently - funny old English people. They were actually not bad - and the band was excellent, especially one of the guys dressed in a badger skin who was beating his drum with a teddy bear!! Hahaha. Didn't manage to quite capture it on film but was very entertaining, and right outside my hotel.

While I'm on random English things, how about this:

An 'urban beach' set up in the middle of Bristol, next to the river that you certainly wouldn't want to swim in.

So strange.

Nath and I went down there for a day trip one saturday.

We had devonshire tea, and I got a bit artistic!

Sheep Racing

2007-08-02T11:52:00.000Z

We went to Alex and Nicky's parents little village - Nether Compton - for their village fete - the highlight of which is the sheep racing! Most of our homegroup went, along with a few hangers-on, so it was a reasonably full household.

Here we are:

Kate, Sarah, Mike (Sarah's boyfriend), Mim, Julia, Luke (married), Alex&Nicky's mum, Nath, me, Luke (friend of mine from NZ), Alex, Nicky (sisters), Chris (married to Alex).

Enjoying pims on the lawn.

The sheep!

There was other entertainment as well including coconut shy, raffles, lucky dips, ice creams... did I mention pimms? :)

Cornwall

2007-08-01T12:11:00.000Z

We went down to Cornwall for a fantastic weekend with family and boats on the water!

'sunny' British summer... hmm...

The Benson's are pretty well set up down there - they go there for a couple of weeks every summer with kids and grandkids... in total the families have a laser, a mirror, an RS, a topper, and a rib with waterskis and wakeboard.
Nath and I had a go in a couple of boats each, and were trusted to go out together in the mirror, which was so much fun!! Though coming back into shore was a bit tricky and took a few goes.

Really nice to get to know the rest of the family a bit better - and with 3 years since I last saw them, the younger generation have grown up heaps!

This was also the weekend there were crazy floods in much of England... fortunatley we were ok with the trains... until the way home when we were delayed for about an hour, but not too bad.

Nice is nice (ha ha bet no-one's thought of that before...)

2007-07-06T14:48:00.000Z

I got a flight over on Friday evening - and a slight complication getting to the hostel from the airport in that some people gave me bad directions, and I walked in totally the wrong direction from the bus stop! But then I spied some nice french people to ask for directions and they actually gave me a lift right to the door of the hotel in their car despite not being able to speak any english at all!! So nice, and I would have been not a very happy camper without them. :)

Nice was fantastic. So nice and hot, and sunny, and not at all like England (we're having really bad weather at the mo - supposed to be summer!) So, Anna arrived the next morning on the train and we got a local train to Monaco at about lunchtime. Her boyfriend spent about 6months working on superyachts in Nice, so he'd given her some tips on where to go, and they were great tips! So we went up to Monaco (great train service all along the French riviera) and wandered about there chatting for a bit - did the obligatory visit to the casino (didn't go in though as had to pay :)) and saw the changing of the guard.

Then we headed back towards Nice on the train stopping first at Cap d'Ail and Villafrancia. Found ourselves a primo swimming spot at Cap D'ail and stayed there for a couple of hours chilling.

More swimming accompanied by ice cream strolling along the parade, and a nice meal at Villafrancia (another sort of seaside stopoff).

The next day we went to collect our hire car and Anna managed fantastically with the slightly frightening experience of driving on the wrong side in the reasonably chaotic Nice, with traffic lights every few meters and lots of lane changing :). We then spent most of the day driving out to Moustier San Marie. The drive took us around the Northern edge of the Gorge du Verdon, which is known as the grand canyon of Europe. We stopped at each of the viewing points on our map, and it was very spectacular - though after a bit we got used to it and lots of them were quite similar views.

We parked the car at some random layby and had a picnic (of french bread and cheese) and swim in the river which was gorgeous! If a bit colder than the sea. We also stopped at some village market along the way which was quite cute (strangely selling both mattresses and grandfather clocks). Upon arrival (fairly late) we fell in love with the little town we were staying in, and so the next morning we spent a bit of time walking around before driving back around the south of the gorge. So CUTE! And the B&B we were staying at was lovely.

There was also this amazing colour lake, which we couldn’t resist a swim in as we made our way home - like an enormous swimming pool. Be a great place to go back to. Then the drive home - including Anna's close encounter of the snake kind :) and a stand-off with a huge bus trying to come up the road that wasn't big enough for the both of us. I had to back the (brand new) hire car up very close to the stone wall and pull in the wing mirror to let him pass. When we got back we picked up Anna's friend Sally from Nice, and they dropped me at the airport - and went on to have more fun adventures. My flight was delayed a bit unfortunately but lovelyMim picked me up from the airport and dropped me home just before midnight.
It was awesome!!

Valencia

2007-05-14T17:19:00.000Z

OK...

We went to Valencia for the first bank holiday in May to see and soak up some of the atmosphere of the second round robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup (big sailing race!). It was great! Much of our time was spent down in the cup village, but we did also hang about in the old town and did some of the touristy stuff. Anyway, here are some pics:

Cup village:

Team NZ:Nathan and the cup:

Nice looking boat!:

Valencia central: lots of big open squares:

The ultra-modern looking Science and Arts park.

As you can see the weather was a mighty bit nicer than in England!!

It was lovely.

BST and Pudding party!

2007-04-05T12:00:00.000Z

Well, spring has sprung in Bath. It's lovely. We went into British summer time a couple of weeks and it makes such a big difference! All of a sudden the darkness of winter has lifted and there's the hope of long summer evenings, and it's light now from about 6-7.30 I think, which is fantastic! Gives you such a boost!

Along with that, the trees are starting to get some leaves back, and there are magnolias and blossom all around. Also tulips and daffodils are out.

I've been thinking a lot about sustainability again, and we had a great talk 2 weeks ago at church on how it's an essential part of Christianity - VERY exciting! Cool to discover that other people are passionate about this and think about it like I do! The guy who spoke was from A Rocha www.arocha.org - have a look.

Last weekend saw the launch of 'Fi's Pudding Parties UK'... after considerable success in NZ with the 3 that I had there, I decided to delve back into the kitchen and make some fun and yummy things... so much more fun than a dinner party! :) The slight British twist was to include games - like twister and jenga - which I wasn't so sure about but went down well. Hehe...

Yup, so, things are going ok. Have been really un-pro-active as far as planning trips goes recently, so not up to much over Easter - might be a spur of the moment thing. But May looks set to be choca-block with busy weekends, yay.

Not much

2007-03-07T13:05:00.000Z

Well, there's not much of super-importance to report... have been having a few quiet weekends in Bath recently. Last weekend we went for a nice walk near Bath, which was supposed to be 2hrs round, but took us 2.5 to get to the pub at halfway! We took a short-cut home :).
Then were babysitting in the evening for some friends, and they made it a really lovely evening for us - cooked us a very nice meal for two and set the table especially etc, very nice. Then Sunday was church and lunch with the Elviras - good times all round.

Not sure what's on this weekend but the one after should be good - there's the women's breakfast spa at church and I may be going to a salsa ball with some friends!

I seem to have recently become addicted to facebook - so if you're on there, look for me!
Here are some other of those time-wasting things that I'm enrolled in:
bebo
oldfriends
Haven't become a myspacer yet thank goodness!

Hope you're all well and having fun
Fi

Prague Birthday

2007-02-21T13:40:00.000Z

Hi all,
Thanks for my birthday wishes :)
Though my birthday was on Tuesday, I decided to spread it over the weekend. They have a great policy at work here where you get your birthday day off as authorised leave! So I took Monday off too and had a 4 day weekend (which also makes for a 3 day week - very nice). So on the weekend we went to Prague for two nights. It was fantastic! Great fun, all very easy: perfect for a 3 day trip - public transport very good and everyone spoke English. Prague is beautiful - has amazing architecture, lots of very grandiose buildings - with a mixture of styles of Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau. Lots of little cobbled winding streets - quite magical. We were really lucky with the weather - had two beautiful blue sky sunny days on Sat and Sunday, and it only started to pack up a bit when we were on our way to the airport on Monday. It was really nice as well to go for a trip and not have to have everything super-organised. We just did what we felt like without stressing about things - had enough time to just wander about and get the feel of the place. We especially enjoyed the markets and the cheap food places! We also managed to fit in a trip to the theatre (black light theatre, apparently it's a special Prague thing), a city sightseeing tour, dinner in a gypsy restaurant, and seeing the astrological clock (bit of a let down!).

So we got back on Monday evening, and then I went to watch gladiator with Mim Liz and Pete.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was really chilled - I just wandered round town not being at work, did some baking, then had some pancakes and watched a film with Nathan.

A lovely birthday/birthweekend.
25. Still seems quite old.

Snow!

2007-02-08T10:07:00.000Z

It was snowing this morning. Very exciting. Except that I found out my shoes leak and had wet socks by the time I got to work :(

Last weekend was a really good one! Went up to London to visit the cousins. But first, randomly, got a call from a mate from back home who was coming to Bath for the weekend! (Kieran O'Leary), so I caught up with him on the Friday night and again on the Sunday afternoon.

In London I had a string of social engagements - my cousins entertaining and organising me made for a very relaxed and enjoyable weekend. Had brunch with Cowan cousins Becca and Emma, then went for a walk in Richmond park while B went for a 2 hour run! (crazy). It's lovely - a massive great park in the middle of London. And it was a lovely day for it.

Then chilled for a bit and watched the rugby before heading out to Efstratiou cousin Mel's for dinner - which was delish. Cousin Marcus, and 2 of Mels friends from Italy joined us (Richard and Ju). Really fun evening, lots of laughter and wine :)

Stayed the night at Mel's and then went off to other Cowan cousin Oli and girlfriend Laura for Sunday lunch, which was again lovely.

After I got back on Sunday afternoon caught up with Kieran again. Went to church, which was a great Holy Spirit time, and am feeling really excited about God now.

Has been another busy week with things on after work though, and I think tonight's just going to be a bit of a chill-out time.

This weekend am staying in Bath, and then next weekend off to Prague for my birthday!!! How exciting!

Back in UK

2007-01-15T13:54:00.000Z

Well, have arrived back in the UK safely... Had a wonderful holiday - lots of family, friends, sunshine, some sailing, swimming, tramping, relaxing. It couldn't have been better - only longer! Is a bit hard to be back at work, but I'll have to start organising some more trips and things to look forward to now! The weather here is actually pretty nice, which is some consolation :) .

Here are some sailing and tramping photos (isn't NZ great!):

Happy Christmas / Happy new year!!

2006-12-28T04:25:00.000Z

I hope everyone's having a good time over the break and there hasn't been too much stressful Christmas shopping!!

I've arrived safely in NZ about a week ago now, and have been just loving the time with Mum and Dad - home is such a good place to be. Also helps that it's summer and we have about double the daylight hours of Britain! :) (I'll have my gloat now thank you...)The flight wasn't too bad - despite a transit in Tokyo of about 8 hours. It was great to be travelling with Nathan, and I saw lots of films even if I didn't get that much sleep. Recommend Virgin for the total of 4 meal choices! And little fold-up tables. Air NZ has it for the friendly staff and leg room though.

From the airport Nath and I more-or-less went to our respective families and stayed there a bit. I mucked around at home for a few days and got used to being back, and managed to catch up with a lot of friends at the pub on Friday night. Then on Sat morning drove down to Wanganui (where Granny and Grandpa plus other family live)... it's a lovely drive. New Zealand really is a lovely place. There's something about it.

I love Christmas, it's the best. It's so nice to get all the family together, and we've got these little traditions. We stayed at Guzara (grandparents house) for 4 nights or so - and much enjoyed the pool, which was heated to 30degrees! Like getting into a bath! Christmas dinner was for 17 this year, and it was a successful Christmas in that we managed to stuff ourselves with food for 2days running. Hmm... talking of running, maybe that's a good idea!!

Planning to spend a couple of days bumming around, then off to the Coromandle probably to have New Year's at the beach, and then sailing with mum and dad for a few nights.

Ah, it's good to be on holiday...

Christmas Photos

2006-12-27T04:36:00.000Z

Granny and Grandpa and Mum

Dad:
Mum and Granny with Christmas tree:
Christmas dinner - inside the marquee

Christmas parties

2006-12-26T05:29:00.000Z

Scenic Bath:

Following Alex and Chris's party, we had: Rich's going away party on Friday (leaving England and going back to Zimbabwe and Sth Africa for Uni):

Rich's dance moves:

Nick and Mim

Me and the two mims

Then there was a pudding and wine party on Monday.

Bristol office work do on Tuesday - dress up as a hero or villain - I went as a kiwi, Sarah as Steve Irwin and her friend a pirate.

Cardiff office work do on Wednesday: Traditional Welsh dinner at Cardiff Castle! (Very exciting, a party in a castle!)

Drinks to say goodbye with friends in pub (The Raven)

And here's a nice view from the plane...

Not long...

2006-12-05T13:49:00.000Z

Not long now til we come home ... Only 2 more weeks! I'm so looking forward to the trip. I do really love New Zealand, and while I haven't been homesick, I'm pretty excited about coming back for a visit.

It's getting well Christmas-y here already, just into December - the lights are up in town and people are rushing about trying frantically to get Christmas shopping done. I joined them on Saturday - it was PACKED in Bath. They have the Bath Christmas markets too, which a lot of people come to see I think.

It's going to be a busy time before we leave... what with belonging to two offices (so 2 office parties), and a combination of social engagements, I'm going to be going to 6 parties in 7 days over the weekend and into next week!! (Should be a productive week at work???). Wish me luck...

Actually we had the first Christmas party last weekend, at Alex and Chris (who lead our home group)'s house - it was amazing. Alex outdid herself with a huge array of yummy foods in their flash new kitchen, and there was some dancing afterwards. Lots of fun :)

Mmm pudding...

Our lovely hosts Alex (on right):

And Chris (on left):

And here's a nice one of me and Sarah:

Night out (friends photos)

2006-12-01T16:30:00.000Z

Last weekend we went out in Bath...

Ben, me, Nath, Rich

Mim, Katy, Pete

Rich & me

Images of Bristol

2006-11-28T12:08:00.000Z

Some scenery photos around Bristol...

My office

Funny bridge

Cathedral

Station

Park

Update...

2006-11-21T08:47:00.000Z

Hi All.
Not much new or exciting to report... I've had the flu for the last couple of weeks and had to spend a considerable amount of time in bed, which was pretty boring. But the time passed considerably quicker thanks to Nath's laptop and his and Sarah's DVD collections! :) So I've been taking things a bit quietly, still getting over the last of the sickness. But, on Saturday we did go out to watch the rugby, and then went to a late showing of the new Bond film.

The main exciting thing is looking forward to our trip home!! We come back in a month, which isn't long at all (especially when considering buying Christmas presents!!) - so that will be great. It will also be good to be able to plan some long weekends away when we get back, which I haven't been able to do so far because I'm taking all my leave for this year over Christmas. There is lots to do before we go too, with Christmas parties starting up already! The Christmas lights go on this weekend I think, so can probably expect carols in all the shopping malls etc. Aargh! They have a Bath Christmas market, which I'm planning to go and check out too, so that should help me get into the spirit :)

Photos of meeting up with Mel and Haig plus Efstratious....

Work update

2006-10-30T12:28:00.000Z

I've been here just on 2 months now, so still not a huge amount of time, but long enough to have got into a routine. I'm working on one main project, designing a rising main - relatively simple, my main job is co-ordinating people and consents etc, as well as being involved in the actual design. Other than that, I'm going through a whole lot of somewhat historic applications for mains sewerage in villages in rural Wales - some of them first made the applications in 1998! So, just trying to get those tidied up and reports issued. It's interesting trying to pronounce some of the Welsh place names, like Pwllheli and Rhiwgoch!

At the end of last week I went on a Corporate Welcome, which is run every few months for new starters in the company - across all grades/levels. There were about 90 people there in my session. It was quite similar to the grades 6-9 conference that I went on last month - it involved an evening at Warwick University conference centre, with a nice meal and open bar to get to know others in the company. Then on the Friday, it was a full day of seminars - an introduction to what the different sectors of the business do, as well as an HR/ H&S / Financial overview and an introduction to some of the other Opco's. Really interesting to see the wide range of projects that FM's involved in. It was also a good chance to meet others in the company, and hear their vision for where we're going.

Outside of work, things are going well - have had a few weekends at home recently which has been really nice actually - good just to be able to relax a bit. Am still doing loads of stuff with church, which I'm really enjoying, and have lots of lovely friends there. I'm going to go and check out a swing dance class tomorrow evening, which should be fun.

Sunday pub lunch

2006-10-24T07:43:00.000Z

Trip on Sunday to a lovely pub in Ford, near Bath, to celebrate Aunty Jenny's big birthday!!

Oxford

2006-10-11T12:57:00.000Z

Hi all,
Nathan's cousin, Steve, came to visit us for a few days, and last weekend we all went up to Oxford for the weekend. We managed to catch up with Auntie Jenny and Uncle Chris, as well as Rich from back home, who's studying there, and Mim from Nath's church, who's just moved to Oxford.

We had a trip out to Chiselhampton, currently a building site - J&C are re-doing their house entirely. So far the walls are up, and the roof due to go on soon. You get quite an idea for the place even as a shell, as can visualise how it's all going to look - very impressive! And interesting to see it all 'in progress'. J&C then very kindly took us out for dinner to the Kas Bar, which is a Moroccan place with sort of tapas-style food (ie. lots of little plates of things). It's a really fabulous place - very buzzing, and decor is quite something.

On Sunday we hung out with Rich, at an Australian-New Zealand BBQ, and went for a bit of a walk around Oxford. Also got to have a walk around Magdalen College with Cat, his girlfriend (who's lovely) - which was very impressive, especially with the deer!

The Car

2006-09-29T08:26:00.000Z

This is our little car - isn't it beautiful!!

London and Awre

2006-09-27T15:54:00.000Z

Hi all,
I've had a busy couple of weekends recently. The weekend just gone we went up to visit Dad's family - Ian and Tricia and cousins Oli and Emma, with their girl/boyfriends too.

It was lovely as always to go to Awre, they live out in the country and it's such a refreshing place to be. I always really enjoy it. It was an easy drive too, around an hour and a half away - not too bad at all. We went over the Severn bridge which was quite exciting! (Nath didn't really think so). We ate a LOT of food, and also admired the puppies - 11 x 6week old lab pups, so cute. On Sunday we went for a nature walk, and picked and ate the produce as we walked along. I think that's something that the NZ wilderness lacks - not so much in the way of berries and edible things - or maybe it's just that our palates aren't accustomed to it. Anyway, lots of blackberies, elderberries, plums, sloes, apples, etc. It was a lovely day. Saturday we went for the usual walk to the pub, and the boys enjoyed Severn Sider Cider, the girls Peary (cider from pears - quite good). All in all it was very relaxing and not too much happened, just enjoyed everyone's company.

The previous weekend we met up with Mum's side: Jenny and Chris, who were in Bath for the evening, and cousin Marcus, over from Bristol. We had drinks in their very fancy hotel first, and then went out for a lovely meal, in a place called Hole in the Wall - actually most of it's under the road level! Sort of in a vault type thing. It was really nice. Again, great to catch up with family. And on Saturday we went up to London to visit Amy (N's sister) and Jonny. A big trip for our little car, but it made it fine - though we were a little frazzled after it taking about 4hours instead of 2.5! Stupid London traffic!! I suppose we should have expected it... Lovely to see them though, before their next European adventure and then return home.

Other than weekend excursions, things are going well, all in all. Work's not the most exciting I've done, but it's not too bad either. In my usual way, I seem to have taken on a whole lot of things, and am feeling that I'm spread a bit thin at the moment - what with Church, catching up with friends, Nath, and just getting to and from work, I certainly have little time to be bored! This weekend should be a pretty quiet one though so I'm looking forward to that actually.

Anyway, lots of love to ya,
Fi

Edition 2 - Grad conference

2006-09-15T12:08:00.000Z

A month since I've been away already! Crazy... Things are going well. This week's been a good one at work - as I've been away on a conference for a day and a half!

We had a conference at Warwick University for grades 6-9 (the non-managers), across the whole of the company, so there were about 400 people there on the session I went to, and about 12 from my office. It was a great opportunity to get to know both the teams that I'm part of - those from Bristol who I sit with, and those from Cardiff who I work with. Basically it was a socialising thing... with an open bar!... It was trouble waiting to happen... and then a whole lot of seminars during the days. A lot of inspirational, 'don't we work for a great company' talks, and some videos with American voice overs which weren't so well received generally. Very interesting on the whole though, and nice to break up the week!

Last weekend was a pretty quiet one. Had a church ball for the youth group Nath helps with, and it was quite funny to be there boogying down with 16 and 17year olds. It was a good laugh. Otherwise didn't really do anything. Had Nathan and Pete over for Sunday lunch and generally lounged about.

Some friends - Larry, Rich, Mim

On Tuesday I checked out the local Scottish Dancing club, and that was good fun. It was a welcome evening and one of my friends came with me too. We did lots of fairly easy dances, but I think they usually split the classes into beginners and normal, and do the class seperately. Which is a different way of doing it. Think I'll keep going though, it was good fun. And there were other young people there! About 5 out of 40 or so.

The weather's been really good so far (touch wood), though I am thinking I should probably buy a raincoat soon... It's still light when I wake up though, which I'm more than happy with.

Hope everyone's well
xx
Fi

Photos

2006-09-07T12:11:00.000Z

Some Photos...

The English countryside.. this is around where Nath lives. Pretty rural...

Here's where I live by contrast....
And some photo's from the party.... (these are friends from church)
This is Rich and Nick, who's party it was:

Katy and me...

2006-09-06T16:10:00.000Z

Hi there!
This is a bit strange - never had a blog before.
Things have been going well, and I feel like I'm settling in to life in the UK. There have been a lot of changes in a relatively short space of time, so it's been pretty full on. I've now been working for almost 2 weeks, and have been over here for 3. Well, what's happened?...

I've hung out with Nath, which has been great to be in the same country again! And I feel like I've got quite a support group already, with lots of 'ready made' friends of his from church, who don't make me feel like I'm tagging along at all, but have really included me and been lovely.

The important stuff has all got sorted reasonably easily: we got given a car! Which is just amazing, what a blessing! I've moved into my new flat - terraced house. And the other boring stuff like bank accounts and insurance are sorted too.

Work's going ok, a little slow to start off as my boss has been away these first 2 weeks! It's pretty different to work at home both in terms of what I'm doing, and the atmosphere is a little less social, but I'm sure I'll get to know people better soon enough. Next week I'm going to a conference at Warwick Uni, with I think about 400 others from the various FaberMaunsell offices. It sounds like it'll be mainly a social thing, with a complementary bar in the evening! Oh oh.

There's been plenty of social stuff on - too much for me! I'm already starting to have to say no, to preserve my sleep and my sanity!! Last weekend we had a wedding reception and a 21st to go to, which was great. I'll try and put some photos on. This weekend a church ball, and next weekend catching up with some family. During the week, there's lots on with small group, meeting up with people at the pub, seeing Nath, and next week am starting scottish dancing again.

Church is good, and I feel already really at home at Nathan's church, because everyone's been so welcoming. They are pretty similar in many respects to St Pauls, but have more of a community feeling and larger range of ages. The way it seems to work is everyone goes to the morning service and then the evening one is for those who want to go a bit deeper and a bit more contemplative. I've added myself to Nath's small group, which I think is where I'll stay. It's also been really nice to meet families that will have us over for Sunday lunch, it's good to be around families when you're away from home.

That's enough for now I think. Lets see if it works!