Post Holiday blues

Well, not really all that blue to be honest. Things are going well at our respective workplaces and life is feeling settled and more or less harmonious.

While I was on holiday my colleague Hayley worked the last weeks of her notice and flew off to Hong Kong to live her exciting life 6500 miles away! So now I'm following her fun blog called Hong Kong Hayley.

Also happening with our Blogtastic friends, our friend Hez moved to the Outer Hebrides with his wife Becky last year and there they live with their little baby girl Freya and Europe's stupidest greyhound. Well it turns out Hez, who describes himself as an aspiring writer but is rather more than aspiring, has his own blog where he's published his work so I'm bust catching up with that too It's called Cruel Harvest and I'm reading his latest work, The Casebook of Edmund Forrester. It's really good so far!

Technology is also helping us stay in touch with friends and family elsewhere through the wonderful world of Skype. We've been chatting with my cousin Laura in Madrid for the last few months and when I finally bought a little camera for the computer it opened up a whole new world! Since then I've caught up with Gemma Pardo in Barcelona and most recently with Nausheen in New York. It's been marvellous, my heart leaps to think that they feel so near when usually they feel so far away!

Me, obviously

Gemma P

Laura y Erik

Nausheen

A couple of weeks ago we went to ArtsFest with Leon and Teresa; A free annual festival of arts held in Centenary Square in the heart of the city which includes comedians, bands, dance, orchestras, artists and singers. It was brilliant; we saw a solo pianist, a rock band, a brass band, a funk/soul band at the Yardbird, a dj, some short films and the opera and classical concert at the end. We visited stalls, eat an ostrich burger and an icecream, and there was absolutely masses that we didn't see. Was gutted to miss the ballet and the theatre and got lost trying to find the poetry in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, but wound up seeing the Stafforshire Hoard instead! All in all it was brill.

Planning a trip to London with them next - so many things to see and do before they go to live in New Zealand next year - we'll miss them so much!

Finally, at the bottom of our garden today 3 tree surgeons are attacking the trees with some ferocity - visit the blog to find out how it went!