Christmas and New Years in the UK

So I spent just over a week back in the UK, mostly in Devon but we spent New Years Eve in London.

Wonderfully we got into the UK in between the snow storms, and it was actually our most on-time arrival in Devon from the US so far. Go Figure. We even packed an extra carry-on full of clothes thinking that it was highly likely that we would lose our luggage. Didn't happen thankfully.

The first few days were pretty busy. We didn't get to Devon until the 23rd December. We had our obligatory pasty at Paddington train station in London before standing (!) all the way down to Devon on the train. Got to love British Rail and the holidays, and to think that they are putting UP the fares. Madness.

First up on arrival to a VERY snowy England was the Simmons' Family Christmas Meal. Me, Tim, my brother, step-mum and my Dad's side of the family. Always great to see everyone even if it is only once a year.

Tim and I at my family's house in Devon and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve was spent at the bar that my brother Mike works in at the moment. Good grub there thanks bro and then in the Bell.
Christmas day was spent at Mums. Usual strange (but awesome) traditions of Champagne in the morning, Whiskey and Pork Pies (for Ken's Midland roots), presents, walk to the pub (which we skipped this year... ), much napping and then a turkey Christmas dinner.

Tim and my brother Mike during Christmas Dinner

My big present this year was a DSLR Canon Rebel T1i Camera from Tim and my Mum. It's awesome. I've been wanting a fancy camera for a while now and Tim has been making me put it off so that he can get me one for Christmas. I did, admittedly become a member of the paparazzi though over my time in the UK. I decided that I was determined to catch all the things that happen over Christmas that we just take as "normal" but then one day realise that we have no pictures of. I'm definitely having fun with it though. So far I'm still just trying to figure out what all the settings mean, but its such a nice camera sometimes nice ones just happen without me even trying. I'm all about black and white and portrait people photos at the moment. Watch this space for my new hobby!

Usually on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), my brother and I go surfing. Last year we dragged Tim along too. Although this year we broke our reasonably long running tradition. There was snow on the ground and Mike had the flu... didn't seem like our most sensible idea ever. Although we did go for a nice walk on the beach instead. I really love going down to the sea in Devon. It's a beautiful part of the world if you ever get the chance to visit it you should. This does mean though that I haven't been surfing for a year and a half. Boo. Hawaii in April should make up for it!

Mum, Ken, Mike and Tim on Saunton Sands

Tim and I walking on Saunton Sands

Then we headed off to my Dad's for dinner. This has turned into quite the feast of lots of our favourite food and often results in us being pretty hammered... No less than 8 courses later, fun time was had by all.

Dad's flat for Boxing day dinner

The rest of the time in Devon was spent mostly lazing around, eating and of course, included the obligatory trip to Squires Fish and Chip shop and a trip to the Thatch for a pint. I got to drive my old car for the day too! So happy, haven't driven for at least a year and in my own little car too. Brilliant. Even with My Dad, Tim and Mike crammed into my little Fiesta. Good times.

Squires Fish and Chip Shop in Braunton

The Thatch Pub, Croyde

Dad and Mike looking over Croyde Beach

Our last night in Devon was spent in our local at The Bell for the quiz night. We weren't particularly good but it was great that for the first time in years my 3 childhood friends were all in the same place at the same time. Really great to see them, even if the first thing Neil said to me after hugging me was "Wow your accent has changed" and then walked off. Hmmmm. I guess it had to happen at some stage.

Tim and I then left Devon to spend New Years in London where we were to be joined by the lovely Miss Danielle. The very helpfully do lots of railworks on the route from Devon to London in between Christmas and New Year so we persuaded Mum to drive us up to London for a much more eventful than liked journey. Half way along the M4 motorway we had a puncture. Nightmare. Tim changed his first ever car tyre right there on the edge of the motorway! Eventually we made it to my cousin Jasper's house to meet his new addition baby Thorin.
Then Tim and I got a cab to our hotel to meet Danielle. After much of a cluster later, someone had already checked in as me and taken our room and then the next room they gave us already had someone in it, sigh. Much annoyance later we had a room in the hotel opposite Danielle.

Tim and Danielle outside Tim's favourite coffee shop in London

To top it all off at this point I seemed to have contracted Mike's bug and was developing a pretty hefty cold. Determined not to let everyone down I probably trekked around London for two days too long and made it worse, only to fly home on the 1st and have so much pain in my ears as we landed that I have been rendered useless with an ear and sinus infection for the last week, not able to go and join to my project in New York.

We spent New Year Eve itself in both the Winter Wonderland in Hyde park in the very impressive beer garden and in Covent Garden too. The crowds were too crazy to get too close to the London Fireworks so we saw the top of them over the buildings in Covent Garden, took part in an impromptu ring of people doing Auld Lang Syne and found a camper van full of hot Somerset Cider to hang out in. Pretty Good fun.

The cider van!

Hyde Park Winter Wonderland

Danielle and I at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland

Now I'm back in Chicago spending the week here recuperating from my stupid cold and looking forward to the exciting year I already have planned! We are going skiing in Breckenridge for a weekend in early Feb, my Dad, Mike and step-mum are coming over to go skiing in Park City, Utah for a week and then a few days in New York on the way home, a week in Hawaii in April with Tim's family and two weddings to attend and thats just up to May! All very exciting!

UK Trip Jul '09 - Part 2

Continued....
Tuesday
Feeling seriously worse for wear this morning. Tim jumped on a plane back down to Devon from Belfast. Wondering if I would even survive the day, I managed to sleep on Tim all the way back, felt much better once I'd woken up!

It was a lovely evening so we decided to head to Codden Hill, which is a short drive away. I managed to stay on the correct side of the road and negotiate the tiny lanes after 6 months driving on the wrong side of the road. This place is a nice spot to go for a short walk up onto the top of a hill that has awesome views over North Devon. You can see the sea, the beaches, Exmoor, Dartmoor and even Cornwall in the distance. Lovely way to spend the evening. On the way home we did our good deed for the day and helped a baby calf who was wondering about the lanes back into the field with, what we hope was, his mother.


Wednesday
Today was spent hanging out with my younger brother Mike. The three of us went into the local town, Barnstaple, (the metropolis that is...) we had a nice lunch in Pizza Express and headed to Orange Wednesday, yay for 2 for 1 cinema tickets to see the Transformers 2 movie. So cheesy I was laughing out loud at moments, not at good as the first one by any stretch of the imagination. Ask Tim and he'll say it was rubbish, although I secretly kinda liked it...

Thursday
We decided that Thursday would be beach day at the beginning of the week. So predictably again, it poured with rain. I had been looking forward to going surfing for months. So again in typical British style we went anyways. There was a massive 1 foot of surf so my brother and I valiantly attempted to surf. Caught a few good waves. Admittedly it was probably the most easy going surfing I've done in a while. you would get a few little waves and then a surfable one, then none for a few mins... just had to catch the one good one when it eventually came along!

Annoyingly Tim wasn't able to try out surfing for the first time. Mike and I have our own wetsuits and boards, so we planned to hire them for Tim at the beach. Only when we arrived the rental guy seemed to think it was too rainy and said he was closing early so he could watch Neighbours and Home and Away.... hmmmm.

We did admit defeat when it came to the BBQ and had this at home instead. With great delight I headed to Tescos and trawled the shelves for all the things that I had been missing since I've been away. Although apparently Tesco no longer produces the burgers I had been craving for so long, guess I must of been the only one buying them... Still awesome comfort food and made me very happy.

Friday
Tim and I took the day for ourselves. The sun was shining and I could finally show Tim Devon in its best light. The Sun! We went off to the beach. As you near the the beaches the roads get smaller and windier, lifts my heart every time as I drive around the cliffs between the beaches. There's a bunch of well placed lay bys that look over Saunton Sands, where you can get some lovely views. We then headed on to Croyde Bay and walked along the National Trust footpath around Baggy Point. Great being able to look out over the Atlantic sea, really feel at home on the coast, very refreshing.

Next came raiding the surf shops for some new clothes, and yummy Devon cream ice-cream in Croyde. It was so hot they melted way before we had time to eat them, it was definitely a challenge! We finished of with an awesome roast dinner at home, nice one Mum, and an awesome night down at the Bell with some of my childhood friends, Marc and Neil. Great way to end my time back in Devon.
Saturday
Saturday saw us heading up to London on the train (a very excited Tim!). As we were only in town for the afternoon we decided that the easiest answer, instead of giving everyone allotted times to come and see us, that we would just plonk ourselves in a bar and let people come to us!
Covent Garden was really sunny and busy and lovely as usual. London in general was chaos as a bunch of roads were closed for London Pride Parade.

It was awesome to see everyone that turned up. Really appreciated everyone making the effort to come and see us for our brief return. Much love to Lindsay, Chappers, Beccy, Val, my cousin Jasper and his girlfriend, Matt and Dawn, Pat Kua and Xuemin. Meant a lot to see everyone. It was lovely being in London again. Hopefully we will be back one day not to far away...

Tim and I then spent the rest of the evening together walking around London, along the river, enjoying the evening sun and being able to spend some time together.

Sunday
We headed back to Chicago on the Sunday. Thankfully the trip went swimmingly. Always good when that happens!

We arrived in Chicago in the afternoon and headed back to Tim's. It was nice to spend a night there before heading back to Calgary the next day. It was just brilliant being able to spend a whole week together with Tim, instead of the usual stolen weekend every couple of weeks. Can't wait till we can spend the week together every week.

I was very special for me having Tim with me this week. Lovely to show him my world and a great way to round off our first 6 months together.

Being back in the UK was great. I've really missed it. Although now I'm struggling to work out what city or even country I'm in. A lot crammed into a week but totally worth it.

UK Trip July '09 - Part 1

Tim and I charged over to the UK for a whirlwind week long holiday. In the space of 11 days I managed to touch down in Chicago, London, Devon, Belfast, back to Devon, back to London, back to Chicago and then finally today back to Calgary. Needless to see I think we are both slightly in need of a holiday to recover from our holiday, and jet lag is always fun, but a great time was had for sure.

I was thinking how to write this blog, I think that as we were so busy it would be easiest to write it day by day so here goes...

Friday
Fly to Chicago from Calgary and get on the plane to London. This part of the trip was surprisingly easy, they checked my bag straight through to London, the transfer between terminals at Chicago wasn't too painful and immigration let me through fine. Always a win!
Tim came and joined me at O'Hare terminal 5 once he'd finished work. This terminal by the way is absolutely rubbish. For one of the busiest airports in the world there aren't a huge amount in international flights leaving, so there's just a small food court and that's its. Although, in my excitement of seeing Tim for the first time in 2 weeks and the prospect of being able to spend a whole week with him I proceeded to spill my gin and tonic all over my (thankfully closed) laptop and the table and the seats.

We then hopped on the overnight flight to LHR. Have to say it's nice have a lovely boyfriend to cuddle and fall asleep on the whole way home. Don't suppose he appreciated it too much though!

Saturday
We are met by my Mum at the airport around lunchtime and then head off on the 3 1/2 hour drive back down to Devon. Have to say though that when I stepped off the plane I thought maybe we were in the wrong country. Hot and sunny and humid isn't the weather that I remember from when I left the UK 6 months ago...

Once we're back in Devon I show Tim around our family home, more often than not resembling a zoo. A chaos of family members, animals etc. There were Tim and I, my younger brother Mike, my mum and her partner Ken, Ken's heavily pregnant daughter-in-law Sarah and her daughter, the energizer bunny fueled 6 year old, that is Ebbie, our dog Molly, our crazy cats Jinx and Joshua, my goldfish, chickens.... I *think* that's about it at the moment. Takes a bit of getting used to being surrounded by that many people when being used to living on your own, but all part of the fun I guess.

Not doing too badly on the jet lag front in this direction, Tim and Mike and I head down to our local in the nearest village, the wonderful place that is The Bell. You can pretty much guarantee that you can walk in and know at least 1 person in there. It's great that I can wander in having been away for 6 months and everyone is just happy to see you. Of course I came across an old maths teachers, my mum's friend from school, my friends mum.... and we got invited to a pig roast next weekend. Good times. Also possibly the cheapest pub in the universe. Where else can you get a round of drinks for 8 people for 12 pounds. No where.



Sunday
Today we mobilized the small army that we are in the house and added my step brother Guy and his girlfriend Fi into the mix, and headed down to the beaches. In classic England style it was pouring with rain, but we trekked on like proper British people, walking along the beach, Croyde Bay, playing a small game of French Cricket (I have no idea), chucking a Frisbee around and then headed to The Thatch pub. Which as usual was the place where everyone was hiding from the rian so we sat outside underneath some hung up umbrellas and drank pints.

Next up was fish and chips in Braunton at Squires. Best fish and chips for miles and miles around I would say - although I may be biased - had been craving it pretty much since I left Devon in January. Although as there were so many of us we ate in the restaurant on proper plates instead of out of paper with a plastic fork, never quite the same but awesome none the less.



Monday
Tim and I left for Exeter Airport (where I spent an unusually large proportion of my childhood) and jumped on a plane for the short flight up to Belfast City. We lucky to again have gorgeous weather for our very short trip. I went to university in Belfast and was on a mission to catch up with my uni friends whilst I was back. We stayed at Malmaison hotel which was lovely. We met up with Danielle early afternoon at the City Hall and then went on the City Bus Tour, in an attempt to show Tim as much as possible in as little time as we had. I first went on this same bus tour when I first arrived in Belfast in 2004 and the difference in the city and the attitudes in the city went round were quite astonishing. It was a nice thing to see.


We then met up with my other uni friends, PG, his girlfriend Rozzie, Barton, George and Quail in the Apartment, one of my favourite cocktail bars looking over the City Hall. Had a nice dinner and followed by drinks in a few of the Belfast bars, ending in my former workplace Benedicts, for some live music, and too many shots for Anne to be able to handle. Say no more. Was really lovely to see this lot again. And I really enjoyed showing Tim around this part of my life.

To be continued....