Engrish

They speak English, they drive on the left hand side and the grass is green... The world is as it should be =)

It took 2 days to get here (the 2^nd day taking 16hours!) so was a rather long journey. We stopped for the night at Dijon and I got stung by a wasp! Youchies! After the ponies were settled Laura and I got very brave and took the bus into town, this was quite an achievement given that neither me nor Laura speak French and I have to admit that given my track record with public transport I wasn’t too hopeful but much to my shock it was terribly uneventful so I'm sorry I cant make this paragraph too interesting. We did find a lovely steak for dinner though.

The next day we were up at 3am (poor, poor Amelia) to catch the ferry from Calais to the white cliffs of Dover we were lucky with the weather and didn’t have to wait too long to get on. The crossing was quite rough and I spent most of my time wondering how long it would take me to run to the toilet if the situation aroused. We got to eat in the “truckers lounge” and were surrounded by lots of huge, fat, balding guys (sorry Frank ) who were giving us some strange WTF looks – eeek…

Wow Waresley is AMAZING!! It just screams money at you, as you drive in there are huge automatic gates that lead onto a long tarseal driveway surrounded by huge trees – talk about lifestyles of the rich and the famous! The place is massive (hopefully I’ll build up some fitness with all the walking I’ll have to do – our fields are like 3km away!) It has 2 walkers one takes 10 horses the other 15 despite the fact they only have 7 horses there!! There's a horse treadmill, 2 tracks (One 2km long the other a hill track) a horse spa, they have a sweeper!! And about a million boxes!! just my luck the year I come over Susy decides to spend most of it in Italy!!

Oh and there are alarms for Africa! In the tack room, the house, the washing room etc. etc. And all the keypads are way too high!! Like at roof level so I find myself jumping up and down poking aimlessly at the key pad preying to god that I hit the right numbers frantically trying to remember the code as its screaming beeping at me. Ah good times.

First night there we went down to the “The Duncombe Arms” (the local pub down at Waresley that I've heard oh so much about) we had dinner there – well it was either that or starve, we had no food in the house! And coincidentally it was “quiz night”, and the questions were in English!! Yay!!

Also had 'party in the park' at the cricket club the other night too (Eddy also owns the cricket club - who owns a cricket club?!?) God talk about a Jilly Cooper novel!!! Was good to get to know everyone though.

I have an accent! I'm very excited although the novelty is already wearing off when people struggle to understand me, but hey at least they speak English!

Our house is fantastic. Its about 5 times the size of our one in Vairano and is about 20m away from our horses. If only we could take it with us back home!

Did I mention that they speak English here?? Not that I'm excited or anything but they do, they speak English!!! I keep having these weird like OMG I understand what they're saying I should probably concentrate rather than doze off into my own little word! Or I start saying what I think to Laura or Susy and then turn around and see all these people looking at me thinking what did she just say! I forget that other people understand me over here.

He he the funniest thing just happened. We were getting the horses ready to make the 100km trek to put them out into the field and a wasp was flying around, Laura and I were kinda flapping and running away in panic mode when it flew under Tuckers half on rug. We were like eek he's really sensitive and it wouldn’t be all that good if he got stung so we went in investigating and found it chilling out on his Willy!!! OMG what do you do?!? I wasn’t too keen to play the hero having just been stung myself and I didn’t particularly fancy being underneath Tucker when he got stung there! But it started crawling up! (looking to find somewhere to nest?? Poor Tuckeroo L) So we got the broom and sort of shooed it away. The funny thing was that Tucker didn’t seem to mind it there at all!

Venezia

Its official! I'm the worst traveler in the world!

Yes that's right I got lost - AGAIN!! This time it was quite a drama though cause it meant I had no where to stay!!

I guess I should start at the beginning cause your probably wondering what the heck I'm on about at the mo. Well I had 2 days off so randomly decided at about 9 the night before that I would go to Venice.

So off I tootle to the train station (when I finally wake up - come on be fair it was my day off, your not meant to get up early) and lucky for me, no wait great planning - yes that's right great planning ensured that I was right on time for the train so I arrived in Venice about 2pm. And WOW its really breathtaking!! You walk right out of the train station and there's this huge canal. Totally not what I expected, not that I'm sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that!

The accommodation drama started around 4. I had my trusty lonely planet with me (aka my Bible) and rang up the Hostels that it suggested and got an answering machine that said the office is open from 6-8, perfect more sight seeing time. 6 rolls around and I ring back, yes they had a bed for the night but you have to get here before 8 to pay for it and get the key. "Take the Vaporetta (water bus thingy) number 82, get of at Rialto and then ring back for more directions" super how hard can this be I got the bus and got off and the correct stop and tried to ring back but kept getting some message in Italian - I have no idea what the problem was but I tried for about 10min before giving up and trying the next hostel on the list "yes we have a bed but you have to get here before 7.45 take vaporetta 82 and get off at Zitelle" Off I go again and do a complete loop of the Grand Canal (takes about an hour) before I realised I was on no 4!! I have no idea how that happened I was at the jetty that had a big 82 above it! Its now 7.44 and I ring the hostel back but only get answer machine and still get the weird message when I ring the other place. Oh good times!! OK OK don't panic Ill just stay at a hotel (ekk she thinks looking in her wallet) So I went into about 5 all saying no were fully booked tonight and then on the 6th said yes we have a room... €200 "ah OK can you give me half an hour and Ill be back if I cant find anything..." So tried another 5 and finally struck gold whew! I even had a double bed and a buffet breakfast.

So crisis adverted and am safely home with acres and acres of glass in my bags.