UK Trip - post 3 AKA The Stag Do...

What happens on the stag do, stays on the stag do is usually the unwritten rule when it comes to these events. But this time, rather than using it to mask any disgraceful antics, it's an excuse to keep this post brief (I can hear the collective sighs from here).

It was a fantastic weekend, so big thanks to best man James for organising it and to the stag, Andy, for getting married so my Donny Boy reunion was such a memorable one.

Friday night was a fairly straightforward one, beers in a few York pubs, being joined by revellers as they turned up from various parts of the country, ending in the Stone Roses bar which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here is group shot number 1...

It was a pretty heavy night and fortunately the York roads were wide enough to accommodate the side-to-side staggering (no pun intended) of the groom as we made our way home.

Day two started with a production line of bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea before we headed off to the sports hall for 2 hours of indoor football. Heyesie's team were clear winners, suffering their one and only defeat in their last game against us thanks to Joe's clever recording of the result on the whiteboard. A thrilling warm down peno comp was won by Jon Cope with some German-esque finishing.

After a quick(ish) turnaround we surprised Andy with the group blazers, then surprised him further when James presented him with his. Sadly the batteries were faultering on my camera at this point so I only have the one shot of the blazer squad...

James had organised a ghost walk which led us through the winding streets of York to a few pubs several centuries old via the occasional gruesome tale. After that, the indie club where Boz, on day release from Hogwarts, came into his own...

I really should stop promising these posts are going to be brief.

Finally, Happy Christmas one and all...

UK Trip - post 2

It's Friday afternoon and Jo and I are about to go our separate ways. Jo is off down to London to spend the weekend with her sister Maree and I'm off the other way on the east coast mainline to York for the stag do.

Since my last post we've visited family and friends, had a nose round Doncaster and even ventured across the pennines to catch up with the WW crew and have a look round the Manchester Christmas markets.

Here's Jo by a very familiar street sign...

And here she is by my old flat in Manchester, playing for the first time ever in a meteorological phenomenon not really heard of in Auckland...frost...

UK Trip - post 1

Well here we are in Brodsworth, and what a journey. It's a day on now so I'm a lot calmer and less inclined to do a massive, ranting post. In summary, it was awful. Want to know why? Ok, if you insist. I'll try and be brief though....

EDIT: You can save yourself an hour you'll never get back by skipping the bullet points.

* Despite checking in 3 hours before our flight we got seated on the back row for the NZ-LA leg where the seats only reclined about half way. The check in attendant didn't even ask us the usual aisle/window question.

* Our seats for leg two (LA-Frankfurt) were the middle 2 in the centre section of 4 seats - so someone on either side of us.

* I thought our luck changed in LA when I asked about our allocated seats and they managed to find us an aisle seat.

* I was wrong - we got on the plane and I was next to an annoying little kid who's mother's method of parenting was to ignore and read. Even when the kid took off up the aisle as the pilot was revving up the engines on the runway.

* This plane was fitted out about 20 years ago. No personal screens and the 2 films (in a 11 hour flight) were Hairspray and Licence to Wed. There weren't many 12 year old girls on the flight so not sure how they made those choices.

* Our connection to Manchester boarded 50 minutes after we were due to land in Frankfurt. We were delayed by 50 minutes though which lead to some sweaty palms on the airport. I asked a steward what the crack was and he told me there'll be more info given out nearer to landing.

* Info was the gate the Manchester flight left from. We grabbed our bags and sprinted off the plane to the gate, got to security checks (why? we were still in departures) and told the guy our flight left in seconds - he said "Oh it's ok, there have been a few Manchester passengers through just in front of you and no one from the desk has come to hurry people through". We eventually got to the desk I (after I was properly, or more accurately - improperly frisked and even had my passport and ticket x-rayed) and after being ignored a couple of times were told the flight had left.

* Back up to ticket counter to find out what to do next and were told we were now on the 1650 flight to Manchester - it was 1130 by this point. This had already been sorted out apparently so not sure why they couldn't have told us this and saved us the crazy sprint.

* Next was an hour long queue to pick up new boarding passes and the sourfaced rude cow at the desk didn't make that any more pleasureable.

* Back to ticket desk to get meal vouchers - 20 Euros. We wanted a sandwich and a drink which was about 12. If I was being optimistic I would have hoped for change, the very least I expected him to write down the remaining balance on the chit. But no, we had to use up the whole amount. We ended up chucking away most of the food (it's hard to find a hobo in need of a feed in a departure lounge) and the guy made a couple of euros pure profit.

No more worries after that, the short flight back to Manchester was fine and there waiting for us was my poor mum who'd been there to greet the arrivals on the 1125 flight.

In summary, in flight entertainment on Air New Zealand is fantastic, but don't sit on the back row. Flying with Lufthansa was horrible in just about every way. The only exception being one of the customer service guys in Frankfurt who let me call home twice and was actually helpful unlike the others.

Ha, a while ago I said I'd calmed down and I'll explain what happened in brief! Didn't quite work out that way did it?

Anyway, it's great to be home and in a way feels like only yesterday I left. We had a good nights kip and went for a walk around the village this morning. It was quite a change in temperature from NZ that's for sure...

I lived in Brodsworth for 20 years or so but Jo pointed out something I hadn't noticed before - you can join together the r and the n in the name of our neighbouring village with amusing results...

New Zealand and England can be very different. Jo was fascinated by the molehills. Sadly the moles couldn't be enticed out for the photo opportunity...

More pictures of our various adventures to follow (and less text I promise)...

2 days to go...

I really do need to put a new picture on here to shunt that shocking one of the 'thing' on my lip further down the page.

How about a couple from my only Christmas boozey night out in NZ this year? Nothing too exciting, just a few beers at ours with Rob and Dave speeded up by Lunt's variation on the dice game - using cards. After Bonzo spewed off the balcony after a joker we headed off to the Kingslander for a few more. We were all limited in the pocket so after a few beers and some splendid work on the pool table we were done.

Well, after nearly killing myself out in the heat today there's only one working day left before we fly back to England. It's a Saturday too just to compound the misery. But I suppose I am having 3 weeks off so I can't complain too much.

So this is my final post before I head back. It feels like a lifetime since I was living there, but it's only been 2 years. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone I left behind (well, everyone I was bothered about leaving behind anyway), I'm not so keen to leave behind the warm summer weather we're having at the moment.

See you soon!! (mainly aimed at my mum seeing as I don't have that many readers any more, except Rob's Brazilian stalker of course...)

Footnote: Apologies for the quality of the writing...too many "left behind"s and "after"s. My excuse is that I toiled for 9 hours in the heat today. Woe is me.

Goodbye mo...

It's the long awaited day... December 1st. Which means I can finally shave my 'tache.

Here is a filthy close up of the end result...

Today will also see me cut my hair for the first time in almost 3 months. I'm almost Dunc-like in my bouff...

I had the Rob Kidd '06 tache, here he is with this years version (one for his Brazilian fan club)...

A big thanks to those who sponsored me and raised a total of NZ$125 (Bradbury, Millward, Smaje and Rich Bibby). Not so big thanks to those who promised but never delivered.... James, Acres, Lunt. You 3 can buy me beers in England instead.

Big holiday countdown.... we fly in 15 days...