Our car is working, Hooray!!! And we have tested on the motorway. We had to borrow a car from the mechanic to get to Pippa's appointment in Tiverton. It was a Vauxhall (Holden) Vectra with spongy brakes and springing clutch. But it gave us the independence to go and have a look around at the world. After the appointment we returned the car and the mechanic had fixed ours. We have our Renault Laguna back. The next step is to look for a house and jobs and me to c...

What is the fascination with walking along a very cold beach in the middle of winter? I fear I will have to live in England a long time to discover the secret. But this is what Pippa and I have been doing over the last couple of days. Strictly not always on a beach, we also walked along the Beacon overlooking Wellington in Somerset. Australia Day was quiet, we had some wine and cheese by the fire and imagined being warm like in Australia. But yesterday Pippa an...

Hello again to the followers of the blog. Some say follow the gourd, others the sandal. I say follow the blog. Thank you Gemma, long time reader first time messenger. And to Fleur, it is nice for Anouk to have a follower through the blog. Well mine and Pippa's adventures through England have well and truly got off to a challenging start. We bought ourselves a Renault Laguna hatch. It drove well on a test drive and was in our mega price bracket. We needed a car a...

Ma'asalama Saudi Arabia Jan 14th 2010 This is my last entry about Saudi Arabia. I guess it is time to write it as I sent an email this morning to my boss in the ER at the hospital to tell her I did not intend to return. The hospital sees it as absconding, however I see it as giving 3 weeks' notice which is less than the contract requires. But what the heck, I can at least break one contractual requirement. Well apart from the time I had 5 people of mixed com...

Hello from Blighty!! I am at last in England; well I have been for a few days. The flight from Bahrain was great and I landed at Heathrow 30 mins early so I was through customs before Pippa and Katharine arrived. For the record, they were on time I was early. All the winter blast that hit England last week was still hanging around just for me, as I expect most Brits were well over it. I basically slept most of the first day here and potted around the village. ...