Trying to get back into this

So am thinking i need to get back into updating this, so here goes. sorry if this is old news to some of you.

Some time ago (hmmm, mid july i think) i went off to spend the weekend with the forels, so I will start from there. I flew to Geneva from London City airport - which is basically a bit flasher than Nelson airport. But that meant that there were hardly any queues, or formalities. Even had to walk across the tarmac to get to the plane - a bit odd in this day and age. Anyway, easy flight, and then straight off the plane and onto the train to Montreux. Prue had supplied me with excellent directions to their house, so was simply to find my way there. Such a funny wee house - but what an amazing view, and location so close to the lake.

Arrived just in time for a late dinner with the entire family. In the midst of dinner, a friend of Prue's rang offering 2 tickets to see Sly and the Family Stone, so Prue and I thought what the heck, and decided to go. Unfortunately we couldn't work out where to collect the tickets from when we turned up at the jazz festival. So we went for a walk along the lakeside looking at the various shops and stalls, and then had a cider, sitting on some rocks along the lake and having a lovely catch up.

The next morning, Prue and I headed to the Vevey markets,for a look round, a bit of shopping and a coffee. The weather was absolutely gorgeous - not a cloud in the sky. Had lunch and then heading off to the Chateau de Chillon with Prue, Myriam and Gianni - on scooters no less. quite like the idea of having a scooter but I suspect that London isn't the place for it.

Afterwards, Prue and I head back down to the lake and the festival to meet a friend of hers for dinner. Just grabbed some vietnamese from a stall, and then went for a wander - checking out the various stalls. quite busy but not annoyingly so like it can be in England.

sunday, had a bit of a sleep in, while prue went to church. had a lovely lunch on the deck in the sun, and then prue and i wandered down to the wharf in clarens to catch the paddle steamer ferry to villeneuve - which was lovely, and very interesting to see it all from the lake - a totally different perspective. stopped for a cold drink and an icecream sundae before having to head back to the forels so I could pack up and go home again :(

Prue very nicely caught the train to lausanne with me, and made sure i got on the right train to geneva airport. the flight home was delayed, but not too badly. flew back to london city airport and decided to splurge and catch a cab home - weirdly it cost the same as a cab from heathrow, and i am pretty sure my house is much closer to heathrow than london city but ah well. was home by 11pm so or, so crashed out. I did have a lovely time at the forels, and it was very nice to be able to have long talks to Prue about this and that.

since then it has been pretty full on at work. we have just launched a new version of our website - in fact on Thursday so things have been quite frantic at work ... esp in the last few weeks. I practically feel like I am living at work - having to work on the weekends and what not.

Still, am off to Paris tomorrow for a long weekend. Am catching up with some friends from Melbourne who just happen to be going through Paris on the way to Egypt, so that will be lovely.

really have no idea what else is going on. still up in the air as to whether anna (my housemate) moves to sydney with her boyfriend - he is definitely going but she is not sure. i think she is putting off making a decision. but other than that, home life is good. have started running again, although have been severly interrupted by the amount of time i have been spending at work.
am playing netball one night a week with some girls from work, and may even take up yoga - but will leave that til the end of september to figure out i think.

anyway, that is pretty up-to-date for now. will update again after Paris.

Twittering away

So I know that I have been less than good about updating my blog recently ... so I am hoping that twitter will help with that.

Twitter will let me update to my blog (see the neat box in the side bar) from my phone so i should at least be able to give a fleeting 140 character update more often.

Photos but no actual post

Right so I have spent a large chunk of my evening going through my photos, and selecting some to share with all of you, via the interweb. There is still more to come but I am tired now. maybe tomorrow.

anyway, follow the link to see the photos ;)
Franny's Egypt Photos

ETA: have actually put all the photos (that I am going to put up anyway - there are loads more) although they could possibly do with some interesting narrative.

Home Again!

Got back from Egypt last night. Am so tired ... it wasn't a particularly restful holiday. Lots of early mornings, late nights, and drinking took its toll .... but it was completely fabulous! It was certainly something I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. Nothing like discovering Egypt with 90 of your closest friends ... well some of your mates and a large group of Germans.

A more coherent post and photos will be posted when I have got myself back to normality!

Lost Emails

Just quickly, if you have emailed me in the last week, you may want to email me again as I lost a bunch of emails when my web hosting moved from one isp to another (or something).

Update about my trip to Egypt to follow in the next few days!

So where to start?

It has been a while since my last update. Time just seems to be flying by. It is strange to think that I have been in the UK for over a year and in this job for 8 months or so. It does not take long for the unfamiliar to become familiar, and feel like I have been here forever.

This is all going to be a bit random as there is a bit to update, but will try to put it in some logical fashion.

America:

So the last update was day 1 in New York. So will update from there, in some sort of random fashion as things come to mind. Had an absolutely fabulous time travelling round America with Lee. Andy and Mary's wedding was fantastic and we had a great time. Mary looked gorgeous - even more so than brides usually do - and Andy looked quite dashing, as did all the chaps! It was lovely to be able to spend some time with the rels, although not as much as I would like (although I did see an airfare to Vancouver priced at under £200 so I could be back sooner rather than later.

New York, which was where we were before the wedding was great - even though it snowed. We managed to hit all the tourist high points (Empire state building, ferry past statue of liberty, bus tour, snow in central park which just about had to be my favourite thing) but I feel like I need to get back there for a proper look round - we just had a taster really!

After the wedding, we headed down to Las Vegas, where the weather was sunny and sultry when we arrived, but by the time we had checked in, the weather had become cold and windy, which was how it remained for the remainder of our stay there. Managed to catch a David Copperfield show while we were in Vegas. The magic was quite cool, but he was so blasé (well seemingly), it was kind of hard to get excited about it all! But the last few tricks were definitely brilliant - no idea how he did it!

From there, it was onto LA and the final part of our journey! 2 days at Disneyland which was good fun - although quite busy so we seemed to be spending quite a bit of time in line, even with the fast passes. Splash Mountain was closed which was a bit disappointing - but we did get to go on Pirates of the Caribbean 4 times. Last night in LA, we went out with a friend of mine in Hollywood. Was pretty low-key although we managed to eat smores on an open fire while overlooking sunset bvld watched my friend ride the mechanical bull - lee and I are way too sensible for all that!

Then suddenly it was time to go our separate ways. It was quite odd to be saying good bye to lee at LAX, esp. since my flight was delayed by more than 2 hours, so I had no-one to talk to. Luckily once we finally got on the plane, it was mostly empty so I managed to snag a row and sleep for a bit of the flight! But the late departure meant my cunningly organised plan to get home not much after midday, meant I didn't get home til after 7pm. Just managed to put some washing on, and then went to bed as I had work the next day!

Back On the Canals - sort of:

I have been helping friends of mine get their narrow boat ready for their season on the canals (www.bywaterholidays.co.uk) over the past few weekends. Spent Easter up near Oxford with them getting the boat painted. Their boat is a proper hotel boat where passengers sleep on board, so got my first taste of that. The cabins are quite small, but all have ensuite showers, so all the things you need. Hanna's kitchen is tiny - smaller than the one we had last year. She was experimenting in the kitchen over Easter so we got to try all sorts of goodies!

A couple of weekends after that, I head back up to Oxford to help Hanna and John do the last clean up, wash windows etc. Dad joined us from Bath, and was able to steer the boat down to Oxford while we got on with the various cleaning etc that needed to be done. I then went back up to Stratford upon Avon a few weekends ago as a semi-passenger as dad was going on a trip with them, so I stayed with him in the twin cabin for a night. Unfortunately couldn't get any time off so didn't get to go too far on the canals. Basically from Stratford to Wilmcote ... but the weather was a bit miserable and drizzly so didn't mind too much.

Egypt:

And now I am planning my next adventures. Am just sorting out all the details now, but a good friend (an old flatmate from Wellington) is getting married in Cairo, and they have taken it upon themselves to then organise a cruise down the Nile with various site seeing bits and bobs - going to Luxor, Abu Simel (?) and the like. Hopefully will get to Giza to see the Pyramids but not sure as we are pretty jam packed while we are in Cairo. It is going to be quite fabulous! But before that, I am going to Dublin with dad for the end of May bank holiday. Then I have a few days of work before heading out to Egypt. Dublin should be good fun. Am quite looking forward to it ...have to make sure we hit the Guinness and Jameson’s factories.

Work:

Work is busy busy busy, but I have a clear plan of what needs to be done, so that is quite good. The team is back to me plus my boss as the other girl left while I was in the US. However we are starting to interview for a junior BA next week, so hopefully we will get someone onboard ASAP. We are about to move offices (friday this week actually), which will be interesting … as my commute to work is suddenly going to get about 30 minutes longer. Well it is hard to know at this stage, but I think that is what it will be. Ah well, everyone pretty much has a long trip to work in London so can’t really complain.

Anyway, off to get some lunch! Will try and get some photos up, and generally get a bit more organised. But all is well here in London town.

I am posting photos at Flickr too, if you don’t want to wait for me to get myself organised.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/franny_panels/

And here we are!

Right, so we have made it to the end of Day 1 in NY. Well, we did arrive yesterday, but today was our first full day here.
We both had some adventures getting here, with delayed flights, me taking over an hour to clear immigration (just because of the lines, not because I am dodgy), and cargo doors freezing closed on lee's plane. Needless to say it took a bit of time, and some luck to actually find each other at JFK.

Had a bit of a lazy-ish day today. Headed out to see the St Patricks Day parade. Have to say I was slightly underwhelmed, and also puzzled as to why so many people were playing bagpipes - I thought it was a Scottish thing - ah well.

Anyway, we didn't last long there, and so wandered up to check out Central Park in the snow. Oh yeah, that was the reason for the various delays - there had been a snow storm in NY yesterday! But it meant that there was heaps of snow round today - yay!

Wandered round Central Park for a bit, looking for tavern on the green. Found it eventually, and had a quick drink at the bar, but didn't go in to eat. Might save that for later in the week.

Lee has been feeling quite jet lagged so we have been taking it pretty easy. Nothing like a mid-afternoon nap ah? Tomorrow we are off to check out the Empire State building and other such tourist type things. maybe a little less walking that we did today!

And now, some images for your viewing pleasure.

Off Again!

Packing is all done. I have everything I need, and some things I probably don't.
Off for breakfast with Anna to fortify myself for my travels, then New York here I come!

I am so looking forward to it. Going to be cool hanging out with my bro for the next 2 weeks. Will be TWL (traveling with laptop) so hopefully there will be more frequent updates.

Not much else to say. Things are ticking along nicely. Summer is slowly coming - all the daffodils are coming out (possibly a bit early) but it is nice to see.