John and Andrea Udberg

We made the treck down to Birmingham last Friday afternoon/night…  After a prompt leaving time we still didn’t arrive at Shona and Simons until nearly 8pm thanks to the Friday traffic.  We were considering putting off the drive until the morning as Andrea was feeling pretty ill but once there with a beer (juice for Andrea) and some chinese food, the long trip was soon forgotten (or at least blocked from memory).

The German markets have just started for the year and they were just as fun as last time we were there in ‘04.  We had a great weekend, caught up with Tash, Christian, Meika and Mark and had a great Curry

Pics up here.

We are slowly coming to terms with our first English winter in a good while.

The sight of the sun in the morning is very welcome as you munch on breakfast now that the clocks have gone back but coming home from work in the pitch black takes a little getting used to.� Hibernation is being considered.

We are going to try and get most of the Christmas shopping done in the next few weeks, the cut off time to send stuff to New Zealand always appears sooner than expected.  To that end we will be visiting the Metro Centre this weekend, hopefully its far enough away from Christmas as to not be too crazy, I’d imagine there’ll be a healthy supply of crazies though.

I am finally through the BA referencing procedure (I’ve only been working there 2 months…) and have full access to the systems. There doesn’t seem to be too much to actually do in my department  though, hopefully it will pick up.  Apart from that everything is going well and I am enjoying it.

Some of the other new starters and I have started playing 5-aside on Tuesday nights in Benwell.  Its great playing football again, blasting the ball about mostly the run around leaves me hobbling for a few days afterwards with my knee though.  There was also the small matter of losing my wedding ring on the second visit… but apart from that its great

Andrea took sole control of her class this week and is loving the independence that brings, she has already rearranged the classroom and displays to suit her tastes!

I was up early last saturday morning and went to Tynemouth armed with the camera.  There was a good sunrise with a smattering of clouds and I was trying out a technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR).  It didn’t work out that well but I have put a few of the better pics up for your viewing pleasure starting here.

It is a little odd that Christmas is looming and yet school seems to have only just begun, it feels like everything should should be coming to an end.

We are looking forward to seeing Graham & Beth tonight who just got back from Majorca, and then heading down to Birmingham in a couple of weeks to stay with Shonz and Si and catch up with friends from Crossroads 4 Kids.

We hope you are all well. Loads of Luv Andrea & John Udberg

EDIT: The August gallery is now up starting here, the first few are from my birthday and the rest are our trip down to Chester.

We have spent the last three days with Mike and Julie down at their place in Chester.  We drove down on Friday where M&J gave us a tour of Chester and we enjoyed a beer down by the river.  Chester is a great little town.  The centre is surprisingly big for a fairly small population and the city walls and old buliding give the place a great atmosphere.  That evening we frequented M&J’s local, its around 7 paces from their front door… even closer than the Gunner to our place!

On Saturday we all took the train into Liverpool.  The city is undergoing some big changes, the majority of the place seems to be a building site.  We had a good explore and checked out the Citys two Cathedrals… and a very good Chinese buffet

Sunday we all jumped in the car and headed for Wales.  M&J took us on a great walk, up high by a dry ski slope, in Llandudno before we headed for the great little village of Conwy.  After a hearty fish and chip lunch we scaled and traversed the city walls which gave great views of the countryside and castle.

That night we went to the much coveted (by me at least…) Indian buffet in Chester.  Good stuff.  We then had a mini pub crawl back to M&Js house.

Mike definately had the edge in the many rounds of Mario Tennis on his Gamecube but my (possibly World!) Record of 192 on the “Bopit” will stand for a long time I think!

Big thanks to Mike and Julie for putting us up and showing us round, we look forward to seeing you up here soon.

John and Andrea.

Hi all!

We had a great time at scout camp last weekend, 400 kids and leaders celebrating 100 years of scouting.

Pics are now up in the May Gallery.

It was surprisingly cold over the weekend (it was even hard to tough it out in the beer tent at night) but the wide range of activities kept us (mostly) warm enough.

Highlights included flying in a small plane, Mountain Boarding, John kicking buttock on the laser pigeoen shoot (you’d be proud Watson) relaxing with everyone around our tent and John Swann’s Tuna Curry

All is good here, John is enjoying his new role as “Operation Supervisor” at a local IT firm and Andrea is gearing up for another half term of supply teaching.

We’re looking forward to a quiet weekend!  Hope everyone is well,

John and Andrea.

We have had a great time this weekend away with Graham and Beth at Norham, just West of Berwick.  After Graham and Jim had repaired some minor damage to the caravan on Saturday morning we hit the road North.  The bank holiday weekend traffic was surprisingly light and we made good time to the camp site.

Once the caravan had been maneuvered into position there was just the simple task of erecting the awning before we could hit Berwick for some lunch.  If it were only that simple.  The random collection of poles and hooks proved to be quite a challenge… a mere 45 minutes later the awning was up but not pegged down because of the mix of concrete and rock like soil it was sitting on… this later proved a fatal mistake.

Berwick is a great little town and the town walls provide some fantastic views of the coast.  We ate and watched what turned out to be Roeder’s final game in charge of Newcastle before stocking up on supplies and heading back to our little home.

After a sleep for Andrea (she is still not well) and cards for the rest, we went to our local for a meal.  It was a sumptuous feast!  Really fantastic pub food.  mmmm.  We then retired to the mobile unit for drinks, Cranium and more cards.

As the caravan is a single room affair the awning was mine and Andrea’s roof for the night, beneath which we had a little two man dome tent.  All would have been fine if it wasn’t for some exceptionally strong winds.  At 3am we woke to the flapping sound of an awning gone wrong.  One of the poles had come down, its anchor to the caravan forceably removed by the wind.  Graham and I scoured the camp site for more breeze blocks to weigh the sides down while the girls huddled in the caravan.

The morning brought the realisation that water had pooled in the roof of the awning and poured onto the bottom of our bed.  We hastily tried to further secure the awning in the increasing morning wind.  Opening the door wasn’t a good idea in hindsight.  Luckily Graham was clinging to the awning at the moment it decided life of on the ground was not what it wanted.  The thing took off, flipped and crunched in a heap with the Andrea and Graham prone inside.  The offending item was hastily removed and stuffed into the boot.

On a windy day such as Sunday you might as well head to somewhere which is always windy.  Holy island did not disappoint.  The gale force winds did not spoil the beauty of the place and we had a great day seeing the castle, priory and landscape.  Beth and Graham stayed a second night as the wind was too strong to drive back towing their mobile home.  Hopefully they will be able to make it back today!

Click on the piccy above to see the photos from our weekend.

John and Andrea.