UK

Coughs and Sneezes

January 9, 2019 by Vicky Leave a Comment

After a whirl wind and fantastic Christmas break spent with my family and catching up with family and friends which I will write about in coming posts, the Aussie and I have now made the hop on Saturday morning and arrived back in Brisbane on Sunday night and were back to work on Monday morning.

We hopped on a 12 hour plane from London Heathrow to Singapore which I spent binge watching a show called The Americans, which was actually great and I want to track down the other series, because I couldn’t sleep at all. We spent two tired hours in Singapore Airport where I needed to walk and stretch my legs after the first flight and then we had a 7 hour 15 minute flight from Singapore back to Brisbane where I managed to sleep on and off but it wasn’t restful.

Monday and work wasn’t too painful. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t sleep any more but that meant I managed to unpack both of my suitcases (I had to commandeer my Dads suitcase because mine was a bit over stuffed), get everything up and running in the house again and back to “reality”.

Both of us left the UK a little under the weather (the poor Aussie was so unwell he had had to sleep in the New Years rather than come and celebrate with my good friend Becky and her Husband who we visited for a couple of days) and it continues a few days later.

I am not sure if there is some element of jet lag but I was pretty wiped out by bed time last night. It doesn’t feel like the usual jet lag that I have experienced in the past but it means no working out for me which is driving me a little crazy because I am keen to get back in to the gym.

I went for a very gentle walk yesterday and was exhausted post work and I am feeling a bit sorry for myself and my cough this morning so I will have to reign in my enthusiasm and rest for the next few days so I do get better quickly.

Notwithstanding, the sickness this year has started off great and I hope that you are all having a wonderful start to 2019.

All the Christmas Lights

December 29, 2018 by Vicky Leave a Comment

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying that crazy period between Christmas and New Year! The Aussie and I have been out and about exploring the beautiful Somerset countryside on our own and with my lovely parents and I will write about that soon.

My brother says that I make him feel Christmassy and last Christmas that I was at home we visited a local street where most of the houses cover their houses in lights to raise money for charity.

This year was no exception and so as the Aussie was here I decided that we had to go and visit and Christmas Eve seemed like the best night to go so we could feel extra festive.

It seemed like there wasn’t quite as many houses lit up this year but the lighting display definitely did not disappoint as you can see from some of the photos which I took below.

The evening was lovely especially as my brother was able to come along as well. The only thing that was missing was a steaming cup of hot chocolate!

After dropping my brother home we went home ourselves, fully intending to stay up and watch the Midnight Mass on tv and promptly fell asleep half way through!

It was all in all a pretty special Christmas Eve as I also got to see my Grandma and introduce her to the Aussie for the first time.

Final Flight Countdown – Blogmas Day 9

December 9, 2018 by Vicky Leave a Comment

We fly to the UK in just 12 days and so I am in the final countdown and planning stage. The Aussie is in neither!

1. Download music and tv shows / films for the flight – I will usually go through iTunes and select 15 to 20 songs which I can listen to on my trip.

2. Locate and check passports and leave them somewhere safe – I do always leave both of our Passports in the same place but to avoid last minute panics I will find them and make sure they are ready to be packed in my hand luggage before we leave.

3. Print out the flight information and information for the car parking – I use the Trip It app to store all of our travel plans and of course I have the emails on my phone but I like to have a hard copy of the information we will need for the flights to hand.

4. Top up UK SIM cards and let everyone know what number we will be on – I usually try and keep my UK sim card for the next trip home so I will log in to my old account and top up the day before so I can switch the sim cards over and let everyone know when we have landed and also find my brother who is picking us up when we land!

5. Check what films and tv shows will be on the flight – I love that on Singapore Air you can check on the website what films are being released during the month you travel and also the next months flights. I try and plan what films I want to watch if I can manage to stay awake.

6. Pack! Most important of course. This years packing planning has been tricking because of my weight loss. When the sales happened in Australia at the end of winter I couldn’t buy anything because I didn’t know what size I would be. This years packing is going to be mainly the presents I have bought for everyone for Christmas I think!

7. Wrap Christmas presents purchased in Australia – this goes number 6!

8. Charge cameras, Ipad, phones and pack the charger cables – I like to make sure everything is charged ready to go. I also take one of those battery pack chargers with me to cover the time when my phone runs out of battery.

9. Leave my valuables – there are some valuables I won’t take with me so I will arrange to leave them and a key to our house with Naomi to look after whilst we are away!

10. Get everything ready at work – the week before we leave will be mad at work. I will get everything that I can done in advance to minimise the work my colleagues have to do whilst I am away. I also like to prepare holiday notes which explain in detail what is happening on all of my files at work for the same reason.

When you are going away how do you plan for travelling?

Things I am Looking Forward to for the rest of 2018

August 22, 2018 by Vicky Leave a Comment

The first half of 2018 has been crazy busy and really exciting and the second half, well just under half is shaping up pretty nicely as well.

This week I am going to the P!nk Concert here in Brisbane which we booked almost a year ago and I have been really looking forward to. I have always wanted to see P!nk in concert and I have heard she is amazing live so this should be a great experience.

I am also going to be participating in Bridge 2 Brisbane which is a running event around Brisbane. I am taking part in the 5km event with Naomi and am hoping I will manage some running and maybe even get a personal best.

In the coming weeks the Brisbane Festival will be in town. We have tickets to the Seance event which looks pretty spooky! There was also a deal where you could pay for 3 tickets during the event and the organisers will randomly select three events for you to attend for just $30. There are so many different shows during the festival, I am excited to see what we end up with.

At the end of the festival there will be the River Fire event. We went last time and had a fantastic time which you can read about here. I’m quite keen for us to head to the Story Bridge end of the city to watch the fireworks from there.

As we move into October, me, the Aussie and Naomi are signed up for the MS Moonlight Walk starting at Southbank. I booked our places and got a bit over excited / over optimistic so we will be participating in the 10km event! We need to start training for the extra kilometres I think soon!

November will soon be upon us next and that is my favourite month of the year because it means birthday month! I am already considering how I am going to celebrate the day but know we will be down on the Gold Coast for a couple of nights which will be fantastic. We may even get to see some whales.

Then my most exciting event of the remainder of the year will be here at last. The Aussie and I have booked tickets to fly back to the UK to spend Christmas with my family. I am so so excited to spend the time with them with the Aussie, especially over Christmas because I just love Christmas time and being surrounded by my family. We will also get to spend time with some of my school friends, old uni friends, old work friends and also get to see my fantastic extended family because we have a big lunch planned.

I am sure there will be other events popping up as I love being busy and I’ll keep you posted as the year progresses.