Never fear, we are still alive! We tried to find an internet cafe while in Devon (Exeter to be specific) but failed, hence no update while on holiday. Our trip to Cornwall and Devon was very nice, we saw lots of interesting places and met some really nice people. We’re both members of English Heritage and the National trust now which means we can enter all sorts of historical sites and gardens for free, so that’s all good.
Highlights included a visit to Lakeside Gallery, the home of Linda and Roger Garland. We talked to Linda while looking around the gallery, its nice to talk to friendly artists. We purchased an art print as well, its on the site, is done by Linda and is called ‘Lady of Shalott’. We also visited Stonehenge, a lot of waterfalls and wandered around Bodmin Moor for a couple of days. We’ll have photos up at some stage, be patient though as we’ve got 23 films to have developed (which will cost in the region of ?200!) and then scan and then make pages for. Actually, I’ve decided we’re going to have less in the way of pictures – it just takes too long to organise them all.
The trip was preceded by Jim and Gee’s engagement blessing which was very nice. There were lots of people we didn’t know but we were sat at the table with all the other NZ friends and were soon talking away. The blessing was a Greek ceremony and was nice, like a dry run for the weddings with lots of congratulation and celebration of the couples commitment.
After that it was off to Cornwall in the driving rain, which was rather the setting for much of our two week trip – we only had two days with no rain I think. It was actually quite atmospheric walking on the moors in the rain and wind, hopefully some of the photos will reflect this. Our visit to the Eden Project was also done in windy and wet conditions, but was still good. Given the number of people there, even with the weather, I don’t think its the place to visit on a weekend – it was really busy.
We came back on the Tuesday of the second week to go to a Jewel concert in London. We also went into town to see if we could get Keryn’s new Switch (think EFTPOS, but you don’t use a pin) card and cheque book as they were stolen, along with her bag, the previous week (the Sunday before we went to Cornwall). Turns out that our branch office (on Oxford Street) was closed as it had been deemed structurally unsound by builders doing some renovations. Because no-one can go into the building we’ve been having problems getting hold of the stuff, it’ll sort out hopefully.
Jewel was good, the opening act was very good too. Rosie Thomas and her brother entertained us with a short set before Jewel came on. I went off to buy Rosie’s album and had the pleasure of a brief meeting with the woman herself (along with a bunch of others). We all ended up have our album covers signed, which was really nice of her. Jewel sang a good set, even though she had a broken collarbone and rib from a riding accident a few weeks previous, and even managed to play a guitar for some nice acoustic songs.
The next morning it was back to Devon and some nicer weather. We spent a little more time out each day as we finally had some sun and it’s light until 8:30pm now. We’ll right the trip up properly soon…um, I mean eventually. Back to work tomorrow, it’s been nice having the time off.
