John and Andrea Udberg

First pics from January are up.

We are back into the swing of work again… and looking forward to the next break

We both have the half term holiday off so we’ll get away for a quick break at some point, the location depending very much on funds available.  Barbados has already been struck from the list.

We were up at Barrasford, near Hexham last weekend for Scout camp.  Much fun had by all but the late card nights have taken their toll on sleep patterns!  On Saturday we took a walk up to the site of Baden Powell’s first camp.  Thrilling stuff.  Fortunately the local pub didn’t have Setanta (it didn’t even have a TV come to that…) so we missed the match against Man U.  Hopefully things will be very different soon thanks to Mr Keegan, he may not be a master tactician but he certainly does get the hairs standing on end when he speaks.

My weekly 5 a-side match has resumed and we have even been to the gym!  Apparently you need to go more than once to see the benefit though…

Photographs from December are now up in the gallery.

Events in New Zealand have made this a very subdued holiday though.  Our thoughts go out to all of the family and especially to Arnie and her whanau.

Catherine’s friends and family have set up a facebook group in her honour.  A Tribute to Catherine (Kells) The Great!!!!!

Turn the sound up!

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.