Goodbyes...

As hard as it was to leave our home in NZ, it will be much harder to leave England, having spent so much quality time with family and not knowing when we’ll return. We leave England on the 3rd January, and will both be sad to say our Goodbyes. We both finished work just before Christmas, with both employers saying they are sorry to see us go. Amy’s school will particularly miss her, and made a big deal of her leaving, with gifts in the assembly, the staff room, the classroom, hundreds of Christmas Cards and leaving books that Everyone in the school signed! And she was just a relief teacher! One teacher told me (James) that she’d been a breath of fresh air to the school, showing the other staff that teaching can be fun and vibrant! Her attitude and competence has been rewarded back home in NZ with a promotion to Senior Teacher, of the Year 7 & 8’s (although she's now very keen to get Smart Boards into Kiwi classrooms)!

Spending Christmas with the Ridpath family has been special for everyone.  To give (and recieve) gifts with the whole family for the first time, play games, watch Christmas TV and be involved in the family Christmas party - this has been one of the best parts of our trip!  We also made a day trip to Birmingham to visit family Amy's never met and had a wonderful day with aunties, uncles, cousins and half cousins!

We now begin the next part of our Round the World Journey with a flight from Heathrow to New York, and after a couple of short stops in Vegas, Honolulu and Sydney, we arrive back in Christchurch! Looking forward to getting back into our own home, back into our jobs and back to some sunshine!  We pray a blessing on all our friends and family as we begin the next decade - that you will be filled with an inner love, joy and peace that cannot be taken away! God Bless :)

White Christmas...

A White Christmas is surprisingly quite a rarity in England (only 7 in the past 100 years I’m told) and even though it didn’t actually snow on Christmas Day, there was plenty of white stuff around! It started snowing a week before Christmas (making driving and flying pretty risky - an aeroplane skidded off the runway) covering England with a white blanket and everything turned magical!! Even Amy admits there is something special about a snowy Christmas, with the lights, music and necessity to wrap up warm! The photo above is in Withernsea town centre with Ian & Jen who flew home for Christmas. Below, Amy stands with the Humber Bridge in the background as snow falls around her.

English Adventures...

Well even though we both started work, and worked Full Time until Christmas, we took every opportunity to see people, visit places and have some fun and games!  We had a weekend in Manchester with Ian & Jen, visiting the Commonwealth Games Stadium, to watch Hull City V the worlds richest club, Manchester City - a deserved 1-1 draw!  Also visited Manchesters busy Christmas markets, tasted mulled wine for the first time (warmed + extras) ate German sausages at over-inflated prices!  We saw our friends in Leeds and were blown away by the firearms on display at the Royal Armouries museum!

We headed down south a few times, visiting Amy's Dad in Oxford, our friends in Cheltenham and day trips to London.  We ate at Jamie Olivers restaurant (err - I don't think he was the chef that night though), watched Sister Act at the West End (sadly non of the original songs from the movie), visited the Queens home - Winsor Castle (the best tourist attraction we saw - such splendour), saw the All Blacks play the Barbarians at the home of Rugby - Twickenham (they lost - doh!) and shopped at Europes largest shopping mall!

From our home base of Withernsea, a town of 8000 people, our entertainment options were more limited - although we made regular trips into Hull to the movies, we saw a theatre production of Macbeth (dull), Amy went to the Vagina Monologues (don't ask)!  More importantly we were able to join in the local community events such as the Harvest Festival Service & Meal, Remembrance Sunday Services and the switching on of Withernseas Christmas Lights!  We visited the famous 'Hull Fair' Europes largest travelling fair - all the lights, games and rides blew Amy's mind!  We also welcomes Amy's Dad and Marianne for a weekend - showing them the sights and sounds of Hull, including a visit to The Deep and the KC Stadium.  It has been lovely to walk down the street and chat with the locals, friends of old and people Amy would now call friends too!  It is now a place we can both call 'Home' - "where everybody knows your name - and they're always glad you came"!