What Are They Doing?

Just as we were getting to the point of not being able to handle any more of the cold weather, Spring seemed to arrive. We have even had a few days with the temperature in double figures and sunshine! In Queensland we don’t seem to experience the joys of the season changes. Here when it starts to warm up, flowers just start popping up out of the ground, the trees start to get little leaves. It is the first time I have experienced this. People too seem to get a lot happier!

We are now on daylight saving time which means that the sun is not going down until about 7:30 at night. This is great as I can then go for a walk after I get home from work in the afternoon and it is not even dark. Although it does mean that we tend to loose track of the time and not eat till late!

Filed under: General

Since Carmen had a day off (her school was on strike) we decided to test out our new car and take a day trip to Liverpool. After giving the car a quick check-over, we headed off. The trip took under an hour and the car drove like a dream. Not knowing where we were going, we were hesitant as to where we were going, but we followed the trusty brown tourist signs and found ourselves at Albert Dock. It was good that we came here first because they had a tourist information centre and we picked up some brochures on the sights of the city. As we were only here for a short time we decided to hit a place called the Beatles Story which was at Albert Dock. The exhibition was fantastic! We were first blown away by the entry price of £9 per adult but after completing the tour we knew that we definately got our moneys worth. The exhibition comes with a free audio guide that tells the tales of the Beatles from the perspective of John’s first wife, his sister, ex managers, producers and even Paul McCartney. We walked through replicas of the Cavern Club where they first became famous, the Abbey Road studios and the Yellow Submarine. It was an unreal experience to hear the detailed recollections of the phenomenon that was the Beatles.
After leaving Albert Dock, we drove into town to find Matthew Street - home to the famous Cavern Club. We stumbled across it accidently so parked the car and went for a walk. After a quick bite for lunch we had a drink in the restored Cavern Club. The underground club was filled in the early 70s when the above warehouses were demolished. It was a special feeling to sit in this club looking at the stage that once was home to the Beatles. The wall behind the stage still has the signature of the Beatles - and all of the other famous bands that have performed there. We could not imagine how uncomfortable an experience it must have been to see them play in such a small, cramped, dark club (according to Beatles Story exhibition, the whole club had to be cleaned and disinfected every night to try to get rid of the stench of sweat!).
After a wonderful day in Liverpool we headed back to Manchester to beat the peak hour traffic. This didn’t exactly happen and it didn’t help that Carmen told Tony to take the wrong exit and we ended up having to drive all the way into the city and back out to our house.
At least we know the car can handle a hard drive!

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

We received a message from Sandra asking if we were interested in seeing a Manchester United football match on Sunday. Of course we jumped at the offer and found out the details as soon as we could. This meant that we were off to see Manchester United play Birmingham City at Old Trafford. Carmen was super excited as it was her first football match here in England. The weather was not so kind to us - it was raining and a bit cold, but it didn’t dampen our spirits. We drove into town in our little car and caught a tram to Old Trafford with the rest of Manchester. Even though we didn’t know where the stadium was from the tram stop all we had to do was follow the mass of people moving along the street. It was a huge mix of people with old, young, women, men, children.
We had to meet a friend of a friends named John to get our tickets. Inside the stadium we were amazed by the sheer number of people. In the minutes before kickoff the stadium went from half full to capacity before our eyes. It was a record crowd at around 69000. We had good seats out of the rain with some of United’s biggest fans sitting right behind us. This made the atmosphere really good for the match.
The action didn’t take long to start with United scoring in the first 4 minutes off a penalty kick. We really loved the passion the crowd has for their home team - the chants from were amazing! (Old traditional tunes with football lyrics that everyone in the crowd was singing). United ended up winning 3-0.
Loved it!

Filed under: General

After a lot of frustration due to missing out on decent cars in the paper, I decided to have a look on eBay. Straight away I found a couple of suitable vehicles and started to investigate them further. One in particular, a 96 Ford Fiesta, looked very interesting. Only had 53000 miles on the clock and looked to be in good condition. I emailed the seller and organised a time to go and look at the car. No way was I going to buy a car without seeing it first. I took it for a test drive and it drove really well. The funny thing was that the seller told me her reserve without me even asking! I thought the idea of an auction was to keep that secret in the hope that people will just keep on bidding. Anyhow, the reserve was £700. I went home and talked with Carmen about the car and we decided to try and get it. We set a limit of £800 for the auction. Someone had been nice and bid on the car until the reserve was hit. I watched the auction for a while and now no one was bidding. I guess the current highest bidder thought they had it won. The auction was due to finish at 11:30pm. As usual, I waited till the last minute before bidding.I placed my bid with 30 seconds to go and only had to bid once and the car was ours for only £720!
We went and picked it up the next morning and drove home. We were both really happy with our purchase. So good to have a car again!!!

Filed under: General