The Hardman's Visit

The Hardman’s Visit

Already it was the end of September, and it was time for our friends Jacquie and Jeff Hardman and their son Liam to come and visit us for a few days in London. Serious preparations where made for their visit, the house was thoroughly cleaned, new bed linen was bought and their room set-up and toys, nappies and stroller where bought for Liam. I had fun buying everything for Liam, and am amazed at the many different types of strollers out there, and it was funny seeing Ben’s face as I came home each day with new kids stuff!

Finally they arrived on the Saturday, and thankfully the weather warmed up for them. After an arrival lunch, Jeff and Ben went off to the Fulham vs. Manchester City game and Jacquie, Liam and I wandered down to Kensington for cake and coffee to eat in Kensington Gardens. We had a lovely afternoon there with Liam chasing after all the puppy dogs and having fun in the playground on the Pirates’ Ship.

Their second day was another wonderful day and we went to the London Eye and walked from there down the embankment to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London. It was a good day for the London Eye, nice clear skies. The actual ride takes about 30 minutes, which is all you need really. Highlights on the walk down the embankment were the HMS Belfast (Jeff was able to give us detailed information here after serving in the Australian Navy), the fountain for Liam, clarification on London Bridge and the Tower Bridge, and for the boys taking Liam back to the Pirates’ Ship while Jacquie and I popped down to High Street Kensington for a quick visit to the ships and to pick up dinner!

Jacquie and Jeff’s final day in London before heading to Paris on the EuroStar was a typical London day, miserable and wet! Our original plans were altered and after a tricky start with tubes, we decided to take Liam to the Natural History Museum to see the Dinosaur exhibition. He was suitably impressed with all the dinosaurs, especially Dorothy the Dinosaur’s “brother”, T-Rex!!! Jeff took Liam back for his nap and then again to the park whilst Jacquie and I spent the next 5 hours shopping on Oxford St. This I really enjoyed as it was nice having someone else to shop with! Ben joined us after work and we had a lovely dinner at The Electric, where Liam showed he had a tendency to befriend tall men and people with dogs and proceed to follow them up the road!

Lunch on our roof terrace - Jeff, Jacquie, Liam & Inge

Ben & Inge on the roof terrace - Liam helping Ben take photos!

Liam enjoying his new Dora the Explorer book & Jeff at the Football


On the way to see the London Eye

Liam and the rare blue sky - Ben's artistic shot from underneath the London Eye

Jeff & Liam



View from the London Eye


St Paul's & the Millenium Bridge - Southwark Cathedral on our walk along the Thames Embankment

Jacquie, Jeff & Liam enjoying the Pirate's Ship in Kensington Gardens


Liam at Paddington Station & with Jeff at the Natural History Museum with Dorothy's brother, T-Rex!

It was nice having visitors again after quite a few months without! We don’t have anymore visitors now until next year, but we’ll be keeping busy until then. I start my new job on the 15th October and in between then and now we’re off to Madrid, Barcelona and France for the Rugby World Cup!

Inge & Ben xoxoxo

Inge's New Job!

Hi all, I thought I should update you all and let you know that I've finally gotten a new job. I'll be working for United Biscuits, one of UK's largest sweet and savoury snack businesses, and I'm going to be the Senior Brand Manager for HobNobs, one of their largest biscuit ranges under the McVities name. They are based in Hayes, which is within the M25, but about 25km from Notting Hill. It's in a business park, so unfortunately I have to drive, but fortunately I get a car in the package, so I'll have one when I arrive. My first day is the 15th October, so I have a nice little break before I start, which will be nice, so hopefully by then I'll be wanting to go back to work!! I'm actually quite excited about it and I think I'm going to be very busy, which after the tedium of Mars, will be a shock but good for me!


What I'll now be eating a lot of!!!

A weekend away in Devon

A last minute weekend away was decided on in between job interviews for me that we'd do a quick weekend away to give me a break from London. We decided to head down to Torquay in Devon to hopefully catch some of the sunshine that we've been experience for the last couple of weeks. Typically, when we set off on Friday it was raining!!

The view from the car!

We left London Friday morning and it was a long drive down to Devon, the route we decided on being a popular choice and in part single-lane. We drove past Stonehenge and saw it from afar through the misty rain! And eventually made it into Torquay well into the afternoon, where it was still raining. We decided to stretch our legs and get a late lunch, and in our wanderings about town we stumbled upon the local AMF Bowling venue. Seeing as it was raining, and Ben had been practising his bowling on his Wii (and for those who didn't know he used to bowl for NT!!), we decided to have a few games. We didn't do too badly and it filled in some time before it was off to watch the England vs South Africa Rugby World Cup match in the pub. Much to my South African heritage pride, South Africa thrashed England!! We then had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant, Bianco's, before heading back to our Hotel.

Great bowling action by the Jones', all that practice on the Wii paid off!!
Inge and the impressive score, NOT!!

Our Hotel, the Haytor, was a nice little guest house which you could imagine being in an Agatha Christie novel (and incidentally she was born in Torquay), right down to Ben and I having a set table at breakfast! Saturday we woke to beautiful blue skies so we decided to do one of the coastal walks up the coast. We eventually found the coastal path but were a bit baffled when it seemed to end abruptly, and also have a large stone wall blocking the view! Apparently there were steps leading up at the end, but we missed them, so headed back and walked to Meadfoot Beach via the road, which was still nice and gave Ben an opportunity to use his macro-lens and take some photos of the flowers.

Views over Torquay Marina

Meadfoot Beach

Ben's macro photography - nice flowers...

From Meadfoot Beach we continued along the coastal path (we'd managed to find it again!!) all the way to Babbacombe Beach. It was a lovely walk, and thankfully at Babbacombe there were plenty of pubs to get some lunch and watch some of the Australia vs Wales game (which thankfully Australia won!) By this time Ben was exhausted from all the walking, so we headed back to Torquay by bus for a rest before heading out to dinner at a restaurant called The Orange Tree. This had been recommended to us by the hotel, and was a nice little restaurant, but we prefered the Italian place.

Hiking through the bush on the coastal path

The beautiful coves on the walk

On the Cliff Railway down to Oddicombe Beach

Sunday it was time to head home and we'd decided to drive down to Dartmouth and then to Totnes on the way. It looked like it was going to be another sunny day, however, by the time we'd driven from the hotel, down to the beach, stopped for Ben to take some photos of the bathing houses (below) and get back in the car, the clouds had come over and it was starting to rain! This lasted for the rest of the trip home!! But we enjoyed the drive to Dartmouth, where we caught the ferry across the river Dart, and up to Totnes (where I made Ben stop to visit the old Norman castle where you get lovely views - this he wasn't too happy about as the signage to the castle wasn't very good, so we drove around in circles for a bit and then it was raining quite a bit when we went up, so he wasn't too happy about taking photos!!!) But the countryside through Devon was beautiful, even in the rain!

The first photo stop while it was still sunny - the bath houses at Torquay

Inge waiting in the car while Ben takes photo and the view over the River Dart to Dartmouth

Dartmouth from the ferry and the big boats anchored on the River Dart

The Norman Castle at Totnes and the view from it over the town

Views of the Devon countryside

We then drove home via the M5 and M4 which took a very long time. We left Totnes about 13.30 and didn't get back into London until 19.00. Englanders have a habit of sitting in the right lane when not overtaking (on a 3 lane motorway) and the smallest thing causes a traffic-jam. But we made it back safely, just very very tired after the long trip sitting in the car!

But we've got a week to recover and then we have The Hardman's coming to stay for the weekend, which I am really looking forward to. There's a lot to do to get the house ready for guests, especially for a 2 year old, but I can't wait to see them all again.

In other news, I've gotten a job and from the 15 October, I will be working at United Biscuits as the Senior Brand Manager for Hob Nobs, which is a biscuit range here under the McVities name. So 3 weeks of relaxation before back to work!

Until the next update,

Inge & Ben