from down under, 2

Ok, so the kangaroo was great. it was a little on the 'well done' side, but nice and meaty like. tonight we had pizza for tea, from pizza hut - you know its funny having these multi-nationals all over the place, like mcdonalds and burger king etc., its actually quite comforting - particularly as i found after 12 hours on a plane with its naff food, it was great to just land in kuala lumpur and see a familiar restaurant. not that i normally go to these places, its just nice to see a bit of food you know is going to be half decent. Anyway, these pizzas cost $20 for 5 large ones. that works out at about 1 pound 80 each. lovely!

we went to the centre of adelaide yesterday, and i kind of gave my mum and dad a partially 'guided' tour. not that i knew anything much about the place, its just that i had looked up the place in the map before we got there and planned the route we were going to take! there was a funny moment when we got off the train and stepped out onto the main street on the north side of the city centre and some australian guy with a map came up to us and asked if we knew what street this is? - and i could actually tell him cos i knew! bizarre. we wandered round the different markets and malls they had there, my parents buying loads of 'australia' t-shirts, i was kind of looking for a hat - not one with corks - but didnt really see any decent ones i liked so didnt get any. all ive got so far is a shirt, general t-shirt, and a cd of u2, which was about $12. so thats cool. but what are possessinos though anyway? they are not much really when alls said and done. much more important are the experiences, the friendship and the memories!

im supposed to be acting in some big brother style play thing that some guys from my sisters church are doing tomorrow. theyre going to be filming it and then putting it on the internet and maybe using it for films of something else im not sure. my sister and her hubby have recently joined with another 2 folks and set up an internet based theatrical company, who specialise in short productions with a christian message. apparently im going to be the butt of all the jokes in this play cos theyre portraying me as an english dude who as a result of his english accent is therefore unintelligible and requiring of subtitles. okaaaay. my instructions were to 'mumble audibly'. hmmn.

from down under

dear blog, how are you? are you well? good. well, firstly, ive only just rediscovered this 5-point mission that loz has assigned me so its a bit like drat! Cos ive done most of the thingsd on it but i just dont have the pictures to prove it. shes just gonna have to be convinced by my pictures which almost show thewse things, but which are like a scene away from the actual thing. oh well.

Dear blog, the weather that we have here at the mo is the best ive experienced over the course of a week since the summer before last prob. we had a high of 35 last week - lovin it! we had quite a scary happening the other nuight when we got back from somewhere. we got back to our house and as i was cooking up some pasta for tea i heard this slightly bizzarre noise which sounded like a house alarm in the distance. so me and my mum went outside in the back garden after a bit - and boy is it massively overgrown - and discovered that the noise was actually coming from our garden, from somewhere near the ground. We decided that the thing it sounded most like was crickets, but as this sound ws rather loud, consistent and it was still light outside we were in a little bit of doubt. Anyway, we walked into the middle of the garden and the noise ws unbelievable. it was so shrill it was actually hurting my ears. The decibals must have been 120 at least - louder than the speakers on a sunday morning, no joke. I located an area which appeared to be the hub of the noise and stamped on the ground, immediately it stopped in that area but continuede elsewhere in the garden. eventually we realised there must be loads of these things all over the garden. man, it was unbelievable to think that so much noise could be generated by a virtually invisible insect no bigger than a joint of my finger. i put my head down to the ground after a bit, to see if i could actually opull away some leaves and see one, and my head started vibrating with the noise. fortunately they moved off by about 8.20 so we werent in any danger of having our sleep disturbed.

Speaking of which i had virtually no jet lag when i arrived. i was thankful for that - mainly for the 7 hours sleep i managed to get in on the way over on the planes. i was tired, sure, but not hanging like the last time i came.

seen a few things like, but the main emphasis of the holiday has been to spend time with my sister. this sometimes means not doing an awful lot cos shes got her baby like, which is obvoiusly half of the reason were there. He takes an awful lot of feeding too - like 6 times a day or something - so we cant always get out very far but hey, the suns still shining!

We have been out on a vineyard that her father-in-law works on, and plucked a handful of merlot grapes off the vines and chomped away on them, before spitting out the skins and pips. that was cool. weve also been to glenelg, which is just a short way up the coast from where we're staying - and got a parking fine for facing the wrong way! Can you believe that? it was a legal place - no lines or anything - but we were facing with our headlights towards the oncoming traffic, not that there was much in this little sidestreet. Apparently, thats technically illegal in england too, so my sister tells me!

The beach just down the road from my sisters is quite nice, well, very nice actually - seas in nice and close and the waves are a decent size too. we're planning on going to the main town centre tomorrow, and just pottering around there looking at shops and whatever things of interest they got there. kangeroo for tea tonight, yum! Anyway im off to the beach now.

82 days

uh yes, im still here ive not gone yet. But thanks for all your lovely well-wishing messages anyway, i feel very special that you took the time to comment!

this blog is about chocolate - now loz, dont get tempted here - and the sack of it i had for christmas. Yesterday, finally, i finished off all the chocolate and bags of sweets i had given for christmas. 82 days it took to munch my way through it all, an average of a bag a week i think. I never want that much chocolate again, ever! i've decided to ask my sister - the one in kingswood- and my parents to not get me an egg this year for easter. which is a good thing anyway cos easter aint about chocolate anyway. i thought of doing that a couple of years ago but didnt have the bottle. ah well, now the thought has come round again i'll capitalise on it this time! The last bag of christmas chocs i had by the way was a bag of revels. I have never had these in my life, although they're my sisters favourites, its just that chocolate in general doesnt appeal to me an awful lot - give me a bag of haribo anyday. Anyway, i started these on monday and the first one i had - cos theres 6 flavours - was awful. it was this really sweet horrible orange flavour. now normally i like orange but this was just so sweet it was gross. anyway, they also do coffee ones, which are not quite as sweet, but as equally disgusting because theyre coffee, and well, who has ever made a decent coffee flavoured sweet? They do some decent caramel flavours though. Theyre these little hard round ones which are really chewy. now, theyre nice. Also as nice are the chocs which are maltesers, although theyre not maltesers cos theyre revels, but really they are maltesers, so theyre good. the other good ones - but only in comparison to the nasty ones really - are the chocolates which are so blatently minstrels. They are minstrels, but just posing as revels. Honestly, this bag of revels is such a rip-off of other chocolates its unbelievable. The only originals its got are the disgusting sweet ones which are going to force you to wear false teeth about 10 years early. anyway, the only other ones in the bag are the chocolate-covered raisins, which are okay, but nothing exciting really. they were one of the ones which, when you put in your mouth and tasted it was like phew! its not an orange or a coffee. With every chocolate in that bag it was 50-50 whether you were going to like it or be absolutely disgusted by it when you put it in your mouth. Cos of course, the thing is with revels, theyre all covered with chocolate so you cant actually tell what it is until you eat it.
82 days of chocolate, and they had to finish like that. No more!

oz beckoning

well, off to oz soon, lucky me! I dont know if ill get to post again before i go or not. i might be able to on friday actually. hmmn. well if i dont, bye for now, and hopefully ill be able to keep the world updated on my expedition from over there.

The new tagging job

The 7 fave songs?

1. Always - bon jovi. Perhaps the greatest love ballad of all time. the words speak of an eternal timeless love which is really powerful.

2. with or without you - u2. Great anthem, dont really understand the words but its a great, passionate song.

3. sweet child of mine - guns n roses. the most distinctive guitar riff in the world! Great song!

4. agnus dei - really big song of worship, it just builds and builds.

5. uncontained?! come on, you know its good!

6. 'gabriels oboe' from 'the Mission' soundtrack - ennio morricone - this soundtrack has to be the best ive heard off any film ever. hardly any singing but the music is absolutely beautiful. its all done with orchestra and solo instruments, like oboe and spanish guitar, but its really haunting. its actually much better than the film itself.

7. frosty the snowman - whoever - yeh not really, i cant stand this song but i cant think of what else to write, theres just so many decent songs ive not written about!

inspired?

Id like to dedicate this post to the youth service last night. I thought it was by far the best yet and it was great to see so many people doing stuff. i was especially impressed by the sermon and the dramas which interspersed it. Cracking job! Keep going charlotte, and the same to you aspiring actors!

God in the wine aisle

God sometimes just does little things that make you feel a whole lot better. like yesterday morning for instance. there i was in work, and just starting to get really worked up about my whole job sit and the lack of clear direction, when at 8:20 or so as i was standing in the bws (wines) aisle i just though id quickly pray. so i did, and i just felt a calmness afterwards, and much more chilled than i had been feeling over the past 2 days. Praise God that he is with us everywhere.

The rain lashed down

it was raining as i walked up to the library in kingswood. I stepped out of the house at about 1.30 with an apple in my hand and saw the rain falling from the sky, grey clouds stretching out across the horizon............hey. I ought to be an author! anyway.........so i called out to my mother, who was inside watching the tv, and i said, 'its raining.' Immediately i ran upstairs to get my umbrella, and then i marched bravely down the stairs, called out 'bye' one last time, and then stepped out into the rain. By the time i'd finished my apple my right hand was freezing. By the time i got to the shops in kingswood my jeans were damp. By the time i reached the library my right hand, which had been holding my umbrella for the past 10 minutes after finishing my apple was so cold it started hurting, almost, when i got inside the library and put my hand on the mouse, which was radiating some electronic warmth.

The rain, much needed but sometimes i wish it would just rain at night!

the choir

I got called into work yesterday, and i was so glad! I mean, something to do!! I havent been in 3 weeks nearly, cos i had 2 weeks worth of holiday to take.

I would just like to say how impressed i was with the choir on monday night. I went down into the storeroom just to get a speaker out, and as i was passing through i was surrounded by the entire choir singing a song at full blast. It sounded good. Ive never quite been able to appreciate the chouir at full volume in the main church, cos obviously the sound just disappears in the hall, but down there in the little youth room on monday night - Sounded good.