Antistandard Journal

So here I am in London as the last part of my trip. I really like parts of this place more than before, especially the parks. There is more wildlife and green areas than I had seen before. The weather has not been all that bad since it is coming out of winter and going into spring. There are a lot more leaves on the trees than the first time I was here a month ago as the season changes. Season changes are something that we don’t experience at home in Australia very much. We usually get flippn hot and then freakn cold.

I have seen a lot of my family again in London especially my cousins Claire and Paul and their families. Claire’s husband Damien has come back from an overseas work stint and it’s going to be great to catch up with him next week.

There was a massive charity race on in London a week ago that must have included literally millions of families. I did not race but took photos of my cousin Paul’s family taking part. There were also side events like 100 meter sprints for people in costumes and heaps of food stalls.

Buckingham family running a charity race.

Pacman Versus Gandhi

I went to Richmond Park last week which is a massive open area just on the outskirts of the city. There are a lot of squirrels and wild deer roaming around that do not mind people and their pet dogs running past.

Another squirrel in Richmond Park.

Richmond Park.

Richmond Park is very close to the city and has wild deer living in it.

I also went to a bar near Morgan and Sarah’s new house in Stoke Newington that has a lot of stuffed animals on the walls and one massive bear on the ceiling.

A bear rug on the ceiling of a bar in Islington ready to eat customers.

One evening we had a BBQ at my cousin Paul’s place and cooked some marshmallows afterwards. I think the sugar made the kids a little more crazy than usual and Monty turned into the Incredible Hulk.

Hulk hands. Smash!

I bought Mollie a skipping rope for her birthday and found out that she already has 7 of them.

I said my ‘see you soons’ to my cousins and their kids and headed to France. I needed to at least do some French language study there since I came all the way over here. I miss my UK family already and wrote them an email to see how they are going.

My friend from Perth, who moved to the UK 9 years ago and has been in Bordeaux for 1 year, picked me up in his car and we made a quick getaway to avoid any parking costs. Nathan is an awesome guy and loves to surf. He will make any excuse to get to the beach (who wouldn’t after 8 years in the UK), so soon after we rolled up at his place just north of the city, we apparently needed to go to the beach to drink a beer and meet someone who was going to return a couple of passports and a wallet to Nathan’s girlfriend’s cousin from the USA. Michael, a really cool and smart guy from Michigan, USA, is staying with Nathan and his girlfriend Sophie here in Bordeaux. Michael left his wallet on the roof of the car the other day and it fell off but someone found it and now we are going to get it back. So, the casual stakeout went well and we got the wallet back and had a quick look at the piers of Arcachon.

Arcachon Beach. I didn't take this photo but we had a couple of beers here.

Nathan and Michael had to go off to Portugal to meet Sophie for a week, so I was able to look after the house. I have been into the city and had a look around and started my course at Alliance Francaise to brush up on my French. I also had a look around at some jobs, but like always, French web design is very 1990′s and they require the talents of an out dated skill set, so I have decided not to pursue it anymore. Bordeaux is an awesome city and I’m really lucky that I get to see it while I am over here in France, however, I think the original dream of working here, for now, has lost it’s colour due to the lack of decent web design jobs.

Place de la Bourse also known as Place Royale. The big town square with a thin layer of water that reflects the buildings.

While Nathan was still around, I went out to the local Carrefour supermarket for a bottle of Bordeaux originally known to the British as a Claret. It was difficult to find the forest for the trees as there is a couple of massive isles fully stocked with reds. Here is a photo of only part of one of the isles. They also have a back fridge room full of wine and beer that you could land a small plane in.

I wanted to buy a bottle of red for dinner, so I went down to the local supermarket. This was part of the one of the massive isles I had to walk down dedicated to wine.

This is the bike Nathan lent to me to get around town. Not a bad lowrider. I think there is an easy route to the city but so far all I have managed to do is to ride down a road only wider than a cheesestick and when a car or scooter is flying at me, I turn down another lane and so on until I get to the river. Then I can relax and ride along the promenade to get anywhere I want to go. Then, on my way home I do it all again in reverse. But not literally ‘in reverse’ because when I peddle backwards on Nathan’s bike, it jams the brakes on. However, if I did manage to peddle backwards it would probably be a lot easier to get around because then the cars would get out of my way instead of me always dodging them.
I can’t believe I have carried on this much about a flippn bike.

My friend Nathan kindly let me borrow his bike to go to French school.

After a fairly quick bus ride east from Oxford, I arrived in Cambridge. My uncle picked me up in the car and we drove a short way to their place in Burwell. Their house is a converted church that has big stained glass windows in the lounge and bedrooms and a massive back garden. The place is really impressive and definitely the coolest house in the UK except for maybe Ozzy Osbourne’s house who probably went one step further and converted a morgue.

The first stop was, of course, the bottle shop. The best thing about this particular bottle shop is that you can pour yourself samples from their european wine selection and walk around the shop tasting. It was tempting to pull up a seat next to the samples and settle in for the night but the Brits are far to polite and well mannered for that behaviour… (silence with dog barking in the distance).

My uncle Jeremy shopping for drinks while wine tasting.

The fox was another good old English pub with low ceilings, great keg ales and looks like it would suit a pub in a Hobbit scene from Lord of the Rings. People seem more friendly and easier to talk to in these places as most of them are locals that should have been home hours ago and don’t carry mobile phones so their wives can’t nag them. I had a couple with my uncle who is such a great man. He is basically a teenager who’s body grew up and everything else got stunted. It is great to get back to my roots and find out where it all went wrong for me. Of course I am kidding, because we get along like two 15 year olds creating an elaborate but inevitably ill-fated plan to steal a Playboy from Grumpy old Mr. Higgin’s local new stand.

The fox is an old English pub that we necked some pints in near the house.

Believe it or not, this is my aunt and uncles house in Burwell. Looks like a horror movie set from the outside but a quickly changes to a slapstick comedy inside.

'The Meeting House' is my uncle and aunts church/house conversion.

The detail to the top of the front door to the house.

The back garden of the house.

The interior open plan lounge room and stairs of the house.

My bedroom with stained glass reflections.

My auntie Sue is an amazingly caring person who took great care of me while I was visiting and is also a brilliant chef. She will always deny this, of course, but it is true as I quickly demolished everything that she cooked and put in front of me.

My aunt Sue walking out the front door.