Canal knowledge

Back in August we spent a wonderful long weekend in the Netherlands.  Neither of us had been before and we took the opportunity to go with our friends Bastiaan and Pip who've spent a lot of time there and who could make sure we only saw the best bits!

Maybe slightly too big?

We caught the Eurostar over, which meant we could explore Amsterdam for a few days, then on the way back down to catch our connection in Brussels to London, we could also visit Delft and Leiden.

Captivated by the canals

The weather was absolutely superb and it was so lovely to just cruise around looking at all the canals and doing the cliched 'soaking up the atmosphere'!  I particularly enjoyed kayaking around the canals in Leiden and spending an afternoon in Vondelpark people watching.  It was an incredibly relaxing weekend - and a perfect example of the beauty of living in London and having Europe right on your doorstep!

Check out the rest of the photos...

What a holiday!

We had the most incredible holiday in Egypt and Jordan, with too many highlights to count including the Dead Sea, Petra, swimming in the Nile (and sailing up it in a felucca), the Egyptian museum in Cairo, the Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel, snorkelling in the Red Sea... 

And of course, walking up Mt Sinai and seeing the sunrise - and getting engaged!  Very exciting indeed. 

We've got literally hundreds and hundreds of photos, so we're ploughing our way through them to make sure we only pick out the absolute highlights to bore you all with!  As a teaser, here are two from Petra:

Me in Petra, looking at the mosaic floor

Overlooking the Treasury in Petra - an amazing hike up to this stunning view

 It was just so great to finally be in the sunshine again and to be able to do lots of swimming.  Incredibly as well I didn't get sick which was so great and meant that we could enjoy everything to the full.  We took these biobalance pills which have lots of probiotics in them and I would highly recommend them!

So stay tuned for the photos and more stories.  There's a low of 3 degrees today in London and the wind is biting, so it's a bit of a change being back, but more incentive to stay inside and do my reading!

Busy, busy, busy

I just looked at the blog and realised that I hadn't done a single entry for the whole of September - terrible!  But it has seriously been a rather busy month for us, as I've been working nearly full time on Growth Week, which has meant that most other stuff (including my PhD) has taken a bit of a back seat.

However, now that's over, it's back to two days/week work, and I've officially designated November as 'No Fun November' so that I can make sure I'm keeping on track with my PhD due date!

Some other fun things have happened in September though - I'm now President of the Beekeeping Society (although hopefully only temporarily as it's probably too much work for me to keep doing in the long term), and I had a lovely two week stay up in Islington cat-sitting, which meant lots of tummy scratching and purring to keep me company.

We also got to go to the Olympics and Paralympics, both of which were amazing.  I must say though, I did enjoy the Paralympics more - we got a day pass to the Excel Centre and saw table tennis (below), sitting volleyball, powerlifting and boccia, as well as tickets to the final night of the athletics at the stadium.  I had bought those tickets literally months and months ago and really had no idea what we were going to see, and realising that we were going to see the 400m final with Oscar Pistorus was pretty cool!  I really liked the blind runners running with their guides as well as the high-jump - those guys were pretty inspiring.

And keeping on the sport theme, Adrian also just ran the Berlin marathon in an amazing time of 2:58:11.  How fast is that??  Good inspiration for me as I've signed up for my first triathlon, the Blenheim triathlon in June next year.  Lots of training to come!

We're off to Egypt and Jordan this weekend, which I am really looking forward to - especially the weather.  Check out the temperatures for Cairo while we're there - absolutely perfect!

Bank Holiday rambling & carnival

This August bank holiday weekend (that's a public holiday weekend for all those non-UK readers), we hadn't made any plans to go away, which made it the first bank holiday weekend we'd stayed in London for over six months.

As a result, we packed in all sorts of activities, ranging from a ramble in Edenbridge, Kent on Saturday (missing the torrential rain and lightening in London - score!) followed by a huge pub lunch (although a three mile walk hardly justified it...), then going to see Notorious, one of every single one of Alfred Hitchcock's movies that the BFI is screening at the moment.  It was a great film, with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman - I'd definitely recommend it.

Sunday was a 36km run for Adrian (yikes!) and a bbq, then the Notting Hill carnival for me.  I hadn't been before so wanted to see what all the fuss was about - and yes, it's just as busy as everyone says!  Luckily we knew of a private party in one of the mews which was a great escape, and lots of fun to be dancing outside in the streets with your friends.  Luckily Adrian managed to recover in time to get into the carnival for some jerk chicken and a boogie.

And then Monday was dim sum in Baker Street (the cuttlefish cheong fun was my favourite) followed by calamari and squid ink pasta (the latter we'd bought in Venice and had been waiting to find fresh squid to use).  I was surprised how easy it was to prepare squid - just whip out the middle, give it a clean and you're ready to go.  Delicious!

All in all, London put on a great bank holiday weekend - and everybody loves four day weeks!  Check out the rest of the photos.

Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)!

Flight of the Conchords (for all those who haven't heard of them, check out this compilation video), have just released a new song raising money for Red Nose Day 2012.  The charity organising the event is CureKids, a NZ-based charity that funds medical research into life-threatening childhood illnesses.

It is one of the funniest things I've seen in ages - make sure you watch all the interviews with the kids and then listen to the lyrics!

You can buy the track from iTunes for only NZ$1.79 (about £0.90) - bargain!