vanessarama

We have now been home for almost 36 hours and the ground has stopped swaying. The trip home was about as good as we could expect - I think I'm actually getting better at this 21 hour plane trip thing. The first shower afterwards is always wonderful! Jet lag has not really hit yet although we are waking up way too early. We picked up Oliver yesterday and he has been punishing us by yowling every time there are no humans directly within his line of sight. He's very purry and cuddly and affectionate though :)

While I wait for my 1500+ photos to download to the computer, I will list some of the things about the UK that struck us as very different to home and which either bemused or delighted us. List made by me with help from vissy and Rohan:

1. Blackberries (and other weeds) aren't sprayed! In fact we saw people out picking blackberries on a Sunday morning! Here in Australia blackberries are a noxious weed and are regularly sprayed with weedkiller by local councils; you wouldn't dare pick them unless you were very familiar with your council's spraying dates.

2. Sheep have tails. I have mentioned before how weird this seems to us; sheep's tails are docked here to avoid painful death by flystrike. I did observe some British sheep with only partial tails, or no tail at all, so they evidently don't keep them universally, but here they're pretty much universally not there. To my eyes British sheep seem to have an extra leg :)

3. Pubs are actually good to talk in! Most pubs here (in the city, anyway) seem to fancy themselves as pseudo-nightclubs and consequently are full of doof-doof music turned up loud. British pubs are far more pleasant and people even take their kids there.

4. We stayed in eight different places and every single one of them had a different shower arrangement. There were dials, knobs, levers and buttons, but never had a simple pair of hot and cold taps.

5. There seems to be an aversion to using £2 coins. If you got £4 change, it would almost always be all in £1 coins. This is heavy. Also the money is all paper, not plastic like here, so the notes can be really tatty!

6. There are dogs everywhere. Even in castles and historic monuments! Even in pubs! People bring dogs into pubs!

7. People take strollers and prams everywhere. Including up spiral staircases and over very rough ground. I fear for the number of kids we saw who may get brain damage from the banging of their strollers over massive cobblestones!

8. England is amazingly set up for walking, with 'Public Footpath' signposts everywhere, even going across private property. I can't imagine how most property owners here would react to people walking across their private land. Also, most country towns are so far away from each other (and most properties out of town are far enough out of town) that you wouldn't walk it.

9. Roads. Oh, the roads. See, with the exception of Sydney and Hobart, Australian towns and cities were (mostly) planned during the era of motorised transport. Roads here tend to be wide and to go in relatively direct lines from A to B. Cities and towns tend to be grids. This is not the case in the UK where roads have occurred more organically. Roads are wee and winding and may loop and double back, and they are all connected by a massive network of roundabouts. Sometimes double roundabouts. There are also about a hundred times more cars on the road then here. Peak hour in a country town like Warwick is as bad as peak hour in the Melbourne CBD.

10. SO MANY PEOPLE. How do you fit so many people into such a tiny country?

11. SO MUCH VARIETY IN PRODUCTS. Even in the Boots near our hotel in London - which is a pretty small Boots - there were at least 15 different varieties of bottled water and a dozen different flavours of chips.

12. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. People are always banging on about how athletic and outdoorsy Australians are. I tell you, British people, and elderly British people, put us to shame. To SHAME! They're always outside. They walk everywhere. THey're tough as boots. Everywhere we went there were elderly people out for a stroll over insanely rocky and treacherous terrain. People with walking sticks! People with wheely-walkers! Clambering over rocks and up steep hills with nary a murmur! I salute them.

I am not dead! I am in Wales!

For most of the past week we've been in Llangollen, in north Wales, where we had no internets. We did, however, see ruined abbeys and castles; we rode on two separate steam trains; we ate at two of the best Indian restaurants it's ever been my pleasure to experience; and we have seen many sheep. Many, many sheep.

Now we are in Abergavenny, the Town Of Cats (we saw 5 in our first evening here) where we have internets (although the B&B seems to have blocked Facebook) and today we have visited three Merlin locations (two of which were also Doctor Who locations) and one Doctor Who location (they were: Raglan Castle; Puzzlewood; Clearwell Caves; and Skenfrith Castle, respectively). I have over 1200 photos to sort and work out, and then I'll post some of the best ones.

Oh yeah; MERLIN. Was awesome.

I'm not going to catch up on LJ, so be sure to tell me if I've missed anything important, ok? <3

... because I am using this post to show off my Best Shawl Ever! This is my second go at knitting Brangian. This time it's the large size. The yarn is the Holy Grail of colour, Wollmeise, in 'Ruby Thursday'. No outside glam shot today, alas, it's been cold and rainy all week.



I love love LOVE this shawl. The colour is fairly true in the photo - it's a gorgeous, glorious deep rich red. The shawl is big - it's six feet along the top. The yarn isn't squooshy, but the colour makes up for that, and the drape is wonderful. It's glorious. GLORIOUS.

Crispness in the air. Scent of wood smoke. Trees shading to the red end of the spectrum. Wearing delicious cashmere and wool and silk handknits. Coming home to a warm home, a purring cat and knitting.

I love autumn so, so much.

( Herein my latest creations. )

1. LONG WEEKEND YAY!!!

2. Rohan took the day off yesterday and true_statement came around and we crawled all over a big map of the UK until we had a travel plan nutted out. WOOT.

3. I went to the doctor to get my prescriptions renewed. It was a new doctor, and he is English. I asked him about getting the flu shot since we're going overseas, he asked me where, and it turns out he grew up on the Welsh border and had lots of suggestions about places to visit. He drew me a little map of Wales on his prescription pad! We spent 5 minutes talking about my health and 15 minutes talking about Wales, and he said I can call him if I have any questions. I think he was so happy to have something to talk about other than work for a bit. DOCTOR FTW!

4. Did I mention it's a long weekend? I have lots of knitting and yarn cataloguing to do.

5. Oh yeah. MERLIN. Silly silly show with pretty pretty people, you make me happy.

I have returned from my appointment with the dentist recommended to me by tetsubinatu. He was lovely! And to my relief, I have two "very small" holes, and although I needed a clean, he said I've looked after my teeth and provided I keep doing so, they will last me the rest of my life. Not bad for someone who hasn't been to the dentist since... well, since the early 1990s.

In fact, he said I have the teeth of an 18-year-old. Sadly, I don't have the body to match.