Catch up :)

Hi All,

We havent blogged in ages so there is a lot to catch up on.

We took a weekend break up to Iron bridge lastmonth, we had been pretty much house bound since christmas so decided we needed a break. Iron bridge is a really cute wee village west of Birmingham, sort of near the Welsh border. It was basically where the industrial revolution started with new ways to work with Iron, they created a bridge (hence the name) with is the first iron bridge ever, very cool!!! Even I thought it was interesting, you can imagine Jeremy liked it!!! We also saw a tar tunnel which us just a tunnel under the hill but there is a natural bitumen spring so there is bitumen seeping out the walls of the tunnel!!!


The following day we visited Wroxeter Roman city, the runis of some of a roman city. It was really cool too, on the way beck we almost got sstuck in the middle of nowhere cos we didt have enough cash for the bus!!!! Doh, we still can't get used to carrying cash around.


At Easter time we went on a coach trip to Amsterdam with my cousin Juliet. it was a fantastic trip and we had so much fun. Amsterdam was much less seedy that i expected and it was really beautiful with all the canals and of course being spring all the trees and flowers were just in bud. One of the reasons we went at easter was to go the Tulip Festival at the Keukenhof gardens. It was so amazing, the bulbfields around the planted gardens were so spectacular, just bright coloured fields of tulips and hiacynths for miles. On the bus on the way in as we passed a field of hiacynths and the bus driver turned off the air con and opened th air vents so we could smell the flowers as we drove past.


We did all sorts of touristy things, visited the red light district, the Heinekein brewery, the Van Gogh and Reiks museums, took a canal cruise. We also went on an excurtion to Edam (yes Edam where the cheese comes from!!) where we rode bikes. its a bit weird riding on the worng side of the road, not too sure how we're gonna cope with driving on the worng side next month!!! It was way too scary to ride bikes in amsterdam itsself, there were millions of cyclists everyhwere, very dangerous to cross the road, first cross the bike lane, then the car lane (both coming from the wrong direction) then the tram lane then cars and bikes again. quite traumatic!!! apparently bikes have right of way over everything and if one hits you its officially your fault even if its not!!!!!

We also went to a cheese and Clog making demonstration which was awesome!!

On the way to Amsterdam we stopped in Brugges in Belgium which was a cute wee town with loads of old buildings (and bikes).

I had given up all sweet foods for Lent so traveling though Belguim and Amsterdam was really hard for the first two days, everyone else was eating belgian chocolate and waffles and other yummy stuff, i was stuck with fries with mayo (pretty yummy really). I celebrated by eating a creme egg for breakfast on sunday!! Have to say I am really proud of myself for actually doing it, the whole of Lent with nothing sweet, it was a massive challenge but yay me :)

Last weekend we went up to London for a visiting trip. it was fantastic to get out of Warwick (not that there is anything wrong with warwick but...) and see everyone. We now have heaps of people to visit in London so it was pretty hectic but we had a wonderful time. We had dinner in Covent Garden with Sofe and Laurie who it was fantastic to see since we havent seen them since were at home!!!They seem to really be enjoying London life and their flat is really nice. We also went to see the show Joseph and the technicolour dream coat with Juliet which was amazing!!! Juliet took us to the Hillsong church on Sunday morning which was an experience, like a rock concert crossed with church, i really enjoyed it!!
We had a picnic in Hyde Park with Sofe and friends on sunday afternoon, the sun was out and it was great to chill, amazing to be in the middle of the city but away from all the traffic and people.
We also visited J's Cousin Yean Hong and his family, Jeremy's Aunt and Uncle are over visiting at the moment too who i had never met. Wee Chloe is growing up fast and is just about walking now, she is soo cute but still pretty shy.
Lastly we visited my Auntie Kath who is 90 something but still doing so well, we played scrabble with her which was great, me and jeremy havent really played much so were pretty rubbish. Auntie Kath beat us by miles!!!!

We have handed in out notice at work now so are officially leaving!! We finish on the 5th of June and will leave Warwick on the 8th to start out big trip!!!!

The latest plan is to spend a week or so traveling round the UK and visiting some family, then head accross to France, drive though Germany, Rhine valley and Black Forest, then a bit of Switzerland and Austria, down into Slovenia, Croatia, then Ferry across to the bottom of Italy, then ferry again to Greece, look around there and head up through Bulgaria and Romania to Hungary. Hopefully our Hungarian friends wil be there so we can catch up with them. Then Austria again, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. At the moment our itinary ends in Prague. what we do after that will depend on how much money we have left!!!

Well thats all for now, hopefully when we get on the road we will be blogging a bit more once we have things to tell about :)

Love Gem