'home'

well, after an emotional whirlwind tour of sydney, i am back now in London to have 3 days sorting stuff out and then back to school on the 2nd Jan.

thank you to everyone for their sympathy for Pop and for your prayers and support, it was warmly welcomed by our family.

and thanks to everyone who i was able to catch up with whilst over in sydney. it was fantastic to see you. (and thanks mum and dad for being patient whilst i saw so many other people!) i had a really good time back in aus, and at the moment, it really is where my heart is at, although, London is where i am at at the moment. so yeah, pretty cool.

was great to see people, sad to leave, but i am glad i am back in london and who knows what my life's adventure entails now...

hooray for small mercies

love you poppy. (this is my pop. he used to use cowpoo to keep his eyebrows black and bushy... aspparently.) and below, this is the lovely Val (step grandmother and the joy of his life), pop, grandma and granddad (on my father's side). ahhh bless them all.

thanks heaps to Reyna (she's my hero!) who came down to Canberra with me to get my entry clearance on monday. left sydney at 5:30am to get to the British High Commission for 9:00am. and praise the Lord, i got my passport back today!!! with entry clearance. so i will be going back to my job and i will be working on the first day of school. which is really exciting. after going to the Consulate, Reyna and i bummed around in canberra. we went to Questacon (science museum) and then went shopping. I LOVE just jeans, jeans west, portmans and sportsgirl. but they are heaps more expensive than my good old primark clothes (and they have gone up in price since i left too). stayed the night with Malcolm and Carol (my uncle and aunty in canberrra, thanks heaps guys!!!) and then drove to gundagai and gee, the countryside is sooooo dry, my goodness.

and then tuesday, in Gundagai for my pop's funeral. it was good to see some of the rellies after such a long time. Unforunate circumstances, but a lovely day. the weather was quite warm, i think at one stage it hit 40degrees and it was sunny. Jordan read out the grandchildren's memories of poppy and did really well (thanks bro).

so the next few days will be catching up with people, helping mum at work and getting ready for the rodgers annual christmas shindig. hooray. can't wait for that!!! oh and then enjoyin christmas with the family and getting ready to go back to england. hopefully the weather in sydney will improve and i can get to the beach. today reyna and i went letterboxing, but got rained on... stupid stupid.

well, that's all for now. i will put up some photos of gundagai and canberra in duke horse (ooops, sorry, i mean due course... pop's horse was called duke).

love youse all!!!
deev
xx

sydney

well, i'm not sure if you all know the news, but I was flying home for christmas to spend some time with my pop (on mum's side) because he was quite sick. well, unfortunately, i got news whilst i was still at school on wednesday that he had passed away. whilst we knew he was not going too well, it was a shock to all of us. so, a week before i was due to fly home i was then on the phone to QANTAS to try and get another flight home. no such luck, but hooray for flight centre who were very helpful and were able to get my on a flight for the next day.

so, a quick pack, flight home (this bit not so quick, but not too bad, even made a friend on the flight) and now i am sitting at home in turramurra with frodo by my side. it was really good to see mum and dad this morning. I am not looking forward to seeing Val (pop's wife) this afternoon. i think it will be very hard for both her and me.

so, not such good grounds to be here, but none-the-less, nice to be here. Although, who put on the weather??? cold and raining... have i even left the UK??

one thing for sure, is it is great to see my room, my old photos, wear some of the clothes i haven't worn for over a year... all that sort of stuff. don't know when the jetlag will kick in... hopefully never.

well, i'm off to take some funeral things to Val. prayer that we will feel God comforting us in this time of hardship.

love you all to bits
deev
dos besos

God bless bigger brothers.

so, they may find us annoying (fair call). and they may not always be kind (probably with good reason). But whenever we are in trouble, they can't help but come to our rescue (and show deep down they really do care). and my bro has done this time and time again. bless him. and tonight is no exception

so, the dilemma this time is... i have my aussie phone on, cos mum and dad might call.... you never know. and then i get this phone call from this broad aussie country bloke asking for some chick. i said, umm, sorry, this is davina, i think you have a wrong number.... no, no, the number he read out was mine. ok, so someone wrote it down wrong.

5mins later, another broad aussie bloke rings.... in response to my add. ok, maybe another wrong number, a bit weird 2 in the space of 5 mins. and then again and again. all in response to my add. so i ask one guy... umm, excuse me, which add would this be?? he got all embarassed and said the one in the paper. i said, sorry, which paper, and he told me. one in queensland. right... and now my phone hasn't stopped ringing.

so, i told my bro, who told me to divert my phone to his (bless him) and he'll sort them out. i'm sure they got a suprise when they ring and hear his voice on the phone. unless of course the add in the paper is for a holden ute (sorry about the stereotype!!). and i am just really curious to find out what is so good about me that i am getting so many country blokes ringing me up!! the mind does wonder!! again, unless of course the add in the paper is for a holden ute, or maybe some cheap barnsie tickets.... man, i would ring the number too if it was for cheap barnsie tickets!!!

anyways.... update on story to come. sorry i don't have the resolution there.... tune in next blog entry for.... what on earth my number was doing in a QLD regional paper!!! (thanks heaps jordan!!!)

hope it was a typo and not some sick joke!!

i love being able to edit posts... will leave the original bit there, but after much investigation (thanks to my bro, bless again!!) we have a resolution!
'the lady gave the wrong number, her number is 0432 *** ***'. i may harrass her later... she went into the paper looking for a refund because of the wrong number...
fab. so she wanted compensation.... for telling them 1 digit different. my number is 0403 and the rest follows the same. stupid stupid. i jasked if she was going to get it and then give it to me for having to deal with dirty old men down the phone (again, unless they are are looking for a holden or barnsie tickets...)
'she didn't get a refund, they told her about the inconvenience caused... apparently she's a lady of the night... not selling a holden...'
lucky we got to the bottom of that one!!!! so i must be a pretty good lady of the night in Queensland. I mean, they would only have to pay what $1500 and have a 24hr trip just to get to london, let alone to me and then back to Qld. man... not bad.

well, best of luck to her and hope the dirty old men start ringing someone else!!! hope your day was exciting as mine yesterday!!

love you all, see some of you soon, and probably the others when i return from Aus.
hugs a million
deev
xx

post no. 100

happy 100 post! yay.

well, last weekend i went to paris, only for a flying visit, but i had a great time. i was able to catch up with Beth and meet clement's family and also meet one of mathieu's friends. fantastic time!!!

and then tonight, we had our family (62 MG) christmas party. lucia and i cooked up a storm. thanks mum for the corn fritters recipe, everyone loved them. we also did tapas and lucia did a great chicken dish. and clement did our fabulous dessert of bannoffee.... congrats to clement, it tasted grand!!! loved it!!!!

school is manic at the moment, with 2 yr 7's excluded for fighting, 2 other students fighting today and well, lots of issues.... bring on next week i say! (am still loving it, just all the staff are tired and kids are narky and it is showing.)

and now, unfortunately i am really tired, so i will be piking early on our family christmas 'do'. the others have gone to watch amelie, so not missing too much. Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad. and i'm spend.... bonne nuit, buenas noches snf good night.

dos besos, deux bisous, two kisses
deev
(the tri linguist, or not!!!)
xx

get ready for rocky horror picture show 62MG style on thursday. yay!

busy busy busy

well, this week has been a busy busy busy week filled with lots of fun things. as i already wrote, on monday, i caught up with Jana and Matt and went museum hopping (well two) in London. Lots of fun. on Wednesday night i caught up with Mark and we had dinner and then went to see Avenue Q, a bit crass, but incredibly funny (would recommend it definitely!). Yesterday arvo was great to catch up with two girls from school, Jess and Ali. Jess i had seen about a month ago, but Ali, haven't seen for 6 years, so that was rather nice. how to catch up on 6 years of someone's life over smoothie and about 2hrs. Lovely to see you two!

And then, to keep the musicals streak running, i went to Chicago last night with Lucia. It was great to spend some time with her (will be sad to see her leave, but can't wait to visit her in Madrid). We had a snack at an Italian restaurant, and in true spanish style, went for dinner after the performance (at a GREAT thai place in Soho).

tonight will be a night in to recover (do some washing, pampering and watch a dvd) and then on tomorrow off to Paris for the weekend. Where i hope to catch up with Louis (ex-housemate), maybe marion (ditto) and Beth.

Well, that's all from me. oh, and i do manage to teach in there, and extra curricular things too. If your in London, come along to my church's christmas carols service on December 17th 7:00pm. I'm in the choir.

hope you're all well. have a great lead up to Christmas. maybe have a bit of a think about why some people celebrate it.

love you,
deev

hola barcelona

once again the photos are a little bit random order, please bear with me. above is umm, a thing on the seaside with mat's head in the foreground. yes, it even rains in barcelona. below, is clement, jose, mat, me and note jose's beautiful 62MG top. go gang 62MG... (which is going to change yet again, as we are going to lose lucia to madrid...)

la sagrada familia by night... still to see it by day! next time for sure! below, matt, jana and myself with our tickets for the slides at the tate modern. we went to the slides today in tate modern which were heaps cool. level 4, for real the best slide, although i hurt my elbow on it. but i had a great day today with Matt and Jana. (i left school at 12:45pm and met with matt and jana at tate). we then had lunch over looking the thames and tried to go to the natural history museum to see a big squid, but the tour had closed, so maybe another day.
below, Jana coming off one of the slides, look at the smile on her face. yay!!! heaps of fun.

mat, me and clement sitting on a bench in a park. don't know where, somwhere in barcelona close to Arc de triumf. very close to where Jose lives. oh and there are the boys and the arc.

some of the mosaic in Parc Guell, i thought that was awesome and then below, the view from tres cruz at the top of Parc Guell.
mat and clem, you are like 5 times bigger and older than those girls. ha. i helped the girls up onto the play equipment and then we left. hopefully the girls were able to get down again without breaking their arms. we tried to help them get off, but they didn't want our help. oh well. not my fault!!
so, there are some photos of my last weekend and today... now for the news.

well, in the last week, i have been had the lovely offer from two EU citizens to marry me in order to keep me in the country. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), my visa is actually coming through, so i had to decline them both as i no-longer need it. oh and also they are too tall!!! ha. but it is very kind of them to be so selfless as to think of my needs and offer! since being over here i have discovered that i quite like shorter guys. like one or two inches taller than me... weird. mum, thinks i am crazy (especially seeing as dad is 6'2''). ok, well that is my randomness for today.

anyways, the weekend was Barcelona to see Jose, and it was great to catch up with him. as it turned out, Mathieu and Clement were there too. (both housemates). we had a great weekend, but instead of going out on saturday night, i stayed at jose's and slept, cos i was so tired.

i did still have a great weekend wandering Barcelona. We went to the beach, around the town and of course had tapas for lunch. then at night went to La Sagrada Familia and wandered the main shopping street. the next day, we went to have tapas again with Jose and dropped him at the Estacion Nord. Then we wandered and this time we went to the Parc Guell and umm, actually, i think that was pretty much it. Parc Guell was fantastic!!! I would love to go back there and spend some more time in the parc and then explore the city, maybe one day.

this week i am having a few nice nights out. one with marky mark to go and see Avenue Q and one with Lucia to see Chicago.

well, i think that is all for the moment. next stop, next weekend paris.

and tonight off for choir practice at church.
hasta luego.
deev
p.s. once again, those in aus, keep the 23rd free for our christmas party. hopefully you can see the invite below (click on it to make it larger). e-mail me if you need a reminder of our address. can't wait to see you. unfortunately i am only home for a little while, so this is one of my only chances to catch up with people. hope you can join us all!!! i wouldn't miss it for the world, ok, well i chose the world last year. whoops. but this year, i wouldn't miss it for the world!!!

yay

big thanks to Chris and her friend who cheered me up a bit on Wednesday night (after a crappy crappy day went to a lovely dinner) and then to Michelle H and Nick for listening to my whinging on Thursday (before, during and after spanish class).

and glad to say, i am pretty much out of my homesick feel sorry for myself stage and back to good old deev. so yay for that!!!

and i do still love my job, my house, my church, my area, my life. so praise God for that.

hope you all have a good weekend.
(congrats to Ty and Shane who are getting married this weekend)

deev
xx

missing home... wherever that is.

just going through one of those phases where I want to be 'home'. I got a message from a friend last night who i haven't seen for years. Good old Alex Chester, ha, thought he had fallen off the face of the earth. Reminded me of the funtimes we had with our super patrol back in scouts (Me, Tori, Alex, Michael, Matt S). oh, we were a kick butt patrol... and then the fact that i'm visiting home in a few weeks and i'm not there now. i actually had some random bad dreams about home. and then the kids are being a bit hard this week, and i'm tired and starting to get sick. all these factors add together to make a not so happy deev... just want a big hug.

but, i'll move out of this phase soon. went ice-skating with some people from my church last night, outdoors at Somerset House (and the fact that is my street name in Aus). It was a fab night. I am enjoying myself over here, so hopefully this phase will pass. anyways, in a few days i will be in barcelona, hopefully that will cheer me up a bit.

take care
a big hug
deev

manchester, Swanmore and more...

well, only 8years after chile and Matt and I are still meeting up. Oh and i didn't get a photo of Maria who Kristal and I met in Thailand by accident (the sister of Matt, who we made friends with in Chile, we then met his sister 4 years later in Thailand, small world in scouting circles.) anyways, i went down to Swanmore on the weekend to spend some time with him and had a fantabulous weekend. it was great to get away from london and catch up with him. (and to have my own tour guide in the area who of course knew everything there was to know about the area, or not... i think i knew more about it than he did!!! ha) Being in the area did help me with my history, we toured around Winchester, an area very close to Matt, that William the Conqueror had a bit to do with, and I am teaching the Battle of Hastings at the moment, so quite fitting.

and the weekend before last one, i went to visit some new rellies in Manchester. (get this relation, my new aunty's sister's family). so, caught the train up there and had a great time. i even got in a bit of babysitting and learnt how to say duck the proper way... such a proper way that i couldn't actually understand it!!! 'is that a quack quack or a woof woof, catriona?' this was also an educational visit, as Manchester was a booming industrial town, and i am also teaching about the Industrial Revolution... maybe i should have got school to have paid for these trips.

umm, what else?? oh, my cousins sent me a lovely teddy bear for christmas that i accidently opened (as he was straight in the box, promise i didn't unwrap a christmas present early!!!), but glad i did open him as i found a great aussie proud bear. he will be fantastic for both the rugby and the cricket... c'mon aussies!!!!

no more photos are going up at the moment, internet stuffing up, so these will have to do, now bear (excuse the pun, ahh haa haa haa) with me whilst i tell you what they are...
first, me and aussie bear. yay, (thanks jen, reyna and marissa, i love him!!! and he keeps my other teddy thomas company, not that i now have 2 stuffed bears),
next photo me and matt on the river, it was pretty cold, but the pub we went into was lovely and cosy warm, especially next to the fireplace.
next, king arthur's round table. don't know how they used to meet as it is hanging on a wall, would have been hard to stand sideways, i spose that is why they were so great!!!
the beautiful Catriona in Manchester, ahhhh.
and matt, walking through the umm, something garden next to the great hall in Winchester.

that's all folks for the moment.
love youse all
deev

p.s.those of you who are in aus still, put the 23rd December in your diaries. Rodgers family annual christmas party will be that date and i will be home for it (and a few days either side of it.) i will post an invite on my blog when i get it sorted out. would love to see you there, as i probably won't have time to see many of you apart from that time! just a flying trip, mainly to spend time with my poppy who is quite sick. and then family and then well, whoever else i can squeeze in, so would love it if you could come to our shindig on the 23rd.

i love my job.

and that's all i have to say.

i will however post some photos and a story or two soon

shebu

ok, so i already know that it isn't a proper day unless i see a sirened car, let alone 5 on the way home from school. (i walk down an access road to a major road and near a hospital, so it is very likely on any given day) and yesterday was no exception.

don't tell mum this, but on my way home from school (3:50pm), i was crossing the green and saw 4 police cars with some of the green sectioned off with police tape... ok, not sure what was happening, so just walked my merry way home. get to my street and a few houses past mine are 5 more police men standing around with another sectioned off area. this area goes around the corner with more police men standing there. interesting. so, tori and i have a bit of a sticky beak on the way to the shops (we have to walk past this area) we ask the police man what happened... apparently just a bit of a fight... mmmm, blood stains all over the pavement and a few sections of road sectioned off equals 'just a bit of a fight'. when i went to spanish class at 6:15 there was a lady taking photos in the sectioned off area.

don't know the story, but it was quite an interesting day!!! love the bush.

what a wonderful world we live in!

have a good friday!
love
deev

potato cakes and parties

last night we had Amy (girfriend of mathieu my housemate)'s party. she's the little one on the left. (i think the other girls name is lucy??) and then mathieu, looking chuffed to be inbetween two girls in a photo.
hey mark, what's that on your face?? it was about time poynts and i caught up, so what better to do than go to remembrance day for 2 minutes silence. london was at a standstill... amazing. just like old times on ANZAC day, but for once neither of us were in uniform.
schelle, Karen Dunn and myself looking sophisticated (the theme for Amy's last night). was nice to finally catch up with Karen who seems to be having a blast over here. good to see you karen!!

the poppy's in the fountain at Trafalgar Square where the service was held. lest we forget. and may we learn from it too.
that beautiful sunset at richmond i spoke about in a previous post. tori, me and schelle, the day we were all here. the next night i was all alone...
me, nick (schelle's new housemate) and Michelle (another one) at a Tapas restaurant in Brook Green. It had really good food and we needed to go there to umm, practice our spanish!!! We are part of the little shebu gang who walk to and from spanish class. last week we had 5 people walking home and branching off at different places, it was quite nice. an almost kind of community in london... never thought it could happen.
me, Evan, Jeremy, Jo and Chris. some of the rovers from back home celebrating evan's b'day. oh and that's my hat jeremy!!!
oh, oh, oh, can you read the name of the band on the drums?? schelle, chris and i went to the Jet gig on Tuesday night. it was pretty good! they are good live.

morrisons (my local grocery store) does my new favourite breakfast thing. potato cakes. they are kind of like a pancake but with pressed potato and you put them in the toaster... soooooo yummy. and probably really bad for you, but they taste so good!

so, my week this week. ummm, have done a bit of a clean-up of my room. putting stuff back in drawers, throwing stuff away, packing stuff that i won't need for a while into my suitcase. ummm, oh and of course then buying more stuff to put in my drawers and cupboard. why?? because i can. I still haven't done my job application, but that is on my MUST DO list of things for today. I'm not sure if i said, but i am applying for my job so that i can go off supply and onto contract so i can get things like sick pay, holiday pay oh and one stress day off a term!!

i think that is pretty much me done for the moment. ummm,

luego! deev

down with skeksis.

caught... watching the dark crystal and i should be applying for my job. whoops. well, i am just really tired and unmotivated. i was thinking that maybe i could do my application and watch the dark crystal at the same time... hmmm, wonder how that will pan out.

'follow the greatest sun, but master, i am only a gelfling.' and the stupid whirring skeksi.... actually, kind of reminds me of a kid at school, maybe i should show him the dark crystal.

well, umm, have a few photos to put online, although me being lazy haven't done it yet and my camera is downstairs, so you will have to wait until another day. saw jet lastnight. they were well good in concert. i forget that live music is really loud. next time i see a band i shall hopefully remember to take earplugs.

saying that, here is one, ummmm, well, ummm, just mucking around on the movember website. ha. hope you enjoy the ummm, changes that i have been through since arriving in London. not bad not bad... let me know what you think of my new look!

what else, not a lot really. having teacher drinks tomorrow night (either before or after spanish class, not sure yet) oh and not including this weekend, i have a few weekend trips planned. really looking forward to them.

ok, should probably try and get some of my good points down in a word document so i can apply for my job (and inturn visa to be able to stay in this country to work after december).

love youse all,
deev

bedtimes and sunsets

well, last night was an interesting night. Schelle moved into her apartment (with 3 most lovely english people) and i came home to a half-empty room and a bed all to myself. it was lovely, but at the same time there was no-one to chat to this morning when i woke up. i think it has been about 5 months of sharing room, bed and space. once i spread my stuff out again i think it will be good. good luck in your new place schelle! and the good news is her place is just around the corner, so not too far to wander there.

On the way home last night, i only passed 3 people urinating and 2 people vomiting. FANTASTIC.... Gotta love shepherds bush!

and the sunsets... my goodness, they are beautiful!! Yesterday Clement and I were wandering in Richmond along the Thames (and could hear the chanting England vs NZ rugby match) and my goodness, the sunset was glorious. and then again today... fantastic!!! they really are!! only problem is they are like at 5:00pm, so the days are getting shorter, colder and darker, but beautiful sunsets. (did i mention the sunsets??)

oh and still loving school, just thought i would share that.
best be doing some work actually, that's why i turned my computer on in the firstplace, but i got a bit sidetracked.

love to you all!
deev
xx

seagulls?

well, last time i checked, White City was nowhere near the sea.

so why all the seagulls on the way to work this morning...

keeps me guessing i suppose

have a great day!

xx

deev in Iceland

the falls, just before the camera broke. ahhh, look, a rainbow. yes, it was FREEZING!! below (sorry a bit out of order), ahhh, Jana, Matt and me at Pizza express. yummy, pizza...

about to set off whale watching, nope, no whales here, just me and tomas ready for the wind and waves. and below, warming up at the blue lagoon. it was something like 2 degrees, and we were swimming outside in warm water, MADDNESS, but it was actually beautiful.
oh, and last week Beth, Schelle, Chris, Me, Kate (a friend of schelles) and Xen (a friend of beths) went to see wicked. and it was.... you guessed it.... WICKED! it's the story of the wicked with from wizard of oz, and i think it is a really clever story. and onto my story...

well, after many a laugh by Tomas, I decided to give up trying to speak Icelandic. It is a language that i think i will never be able to get my head around. there are just some sounds my mouth doesn't know how to make. i will stick with espanol for the moment.

anyways, so, i get there on Sat to be greeted by tommi at the airport, (thanks heaps tommi) which was lovely. We then explored Reykjavik on the way back to Tomas' house. A lovely house indeed. The architecture is quite bland, but everynow and then there is a randomly designed house/building just to keep you guessing.

Sunday we went driving around Reykjavik on the Golden Triangle (first place of parliament, Geysir, Water Falls). TRUELY MAGNIFICENT! and i would have taken more photos, but my camera got wet at geysir, i was taking a video and tomas and i somehow got under tha path of the hot water falling... WHOOPS. but we were fine (water wasn't as hot as i would have thought) but wet and so quickly got very cold. by the time we got to the falls, my camera had decided to hibernate... very wise choice. so unfortunately only one photo, even though we were about 1m away from the water.

then sunday, a great day of whalewatching (only saw dolphins, but still, it was a lovely day and Reykjavik was magnificent once again) and then off to the Blue Lagoon to warm up after a cold day on the water. (a geothermal pool).

this morning was only -4degrees C. Not such a cold morning. And yesterday i had lots and lots of winter woolies on. Even though the weather was sunny, it was still really cold. the lake has started to freeze up. i was going to try and walk on it, but thought that would be stupid. especially if i fell in, so just looked at it instead.

by the way, the hot and cold water to iceland homes is all natural, so the hot water sometimes smells like rotten egg... a great smell for after the shower! nice and clean! oh, and they just run the water like it is infinite. i found it hard to do the washing up as i kept turning the tap off and tomas kept turning it back on again, guess i'm just used to water restrictions.

anyways, think this is enough rambling for the moment...
just finished to Sigur Ros, an icelandic band i bought on cd. hooray!

oh yeah, and before i went away on Saturday, I saw Matty and Jana for dinner on Friday night at the wonderful Pizza Express. We wandered all of Shebu to find a good place fore dinner and ended up there (about 20m from where i live). Ha, that would be right. And it was great to see jana again. Can't wait till just after new years when she will be back in london. a bit cooler next time.

chau,
dos besos,
deev
xx

HAPPY HALF-TERM!

YAY!!

congratulations schelle

well, we discovered that schelle has been living at my house for 6months now. and it has been a great 6 months, but the time has come for her to find her own feet in this big bad city. so, she has been looking around for a nice room to move into. and well, after 2 months of looking for 'the one' she has finally found it. congratulations.

my new friend from spanish class has a housemate moving out and i was chatting to him about my friend who was looking for a place. so schelle looked on wednesday, met the final housemate on friday and got the room. so exciting. she will be living just around the corner in a very nice flat with 2 other girls and nick. and i think she will be relieved just to be able to put her clothes in her own drawers.

oh and i like the place because they have pretty woman on DVD... SOLD!!

so I am excited for her and i am sure she is excited too. nice place, nice people, close to me and has pretty woman, who could ask for anything more??

xx

squirrels in the park...

check out my new streak of blonde hair!!! courtesy of Chris... ta chris! i'm loving it! just adds a bit of colour to my hair (looks a bit yellow there, but not too bad in real life). oh, it makes for a good moustache too, ha. ok, so quick description of the rest of the photos and then the goss... below is clement being a silly face and my new friend Nick my amigo from espana class.three very sexy ladies... schelle, chris et moi... below, schelle, matt, geoff, me and chris. always a great laugh when we all get together and go out. (oh jana, doesn't matt look lovely! haha)

and then ummm, the new housemate... barry, ummm, need i say more?? (by the way, he had just been at the gym, not always that sweaty.)

and now the goss...
well, i was walking home from work this arvo and i decided i must go back to the park to watch the squirrels. they intrigue me. the way their tails move when they pounce, the way they move sideways around a tree, the way they hold nuts in their hands. I have just become a fan of the little pests. ok, so that is my random story for the day, now what have i been up to??

it's hard to believe how fast time really does fly! i am now in week 6 of term which means at the end of this week it will only be one week until i go to iceland for 4 days to visit Tomas and have a bit of a holiday. (Tomas was on my tour of thailand... he was my peeing buddee, hooray for tomas.) so i am really looking forward to that. Iceland looks beautiful. Hopefully will make it to some thermal pools too.

teaching is still quite frantic, but i am enjoying it. today we made mountains out of clay and sand and then poured water over them to see the effects of erosion. we even put farm animals in to make it more 'realistic'. the kids loved it, and so it meant i had a good lesson too! And the best thing is that at the end of the lesson all the students were able to tell me what erosion is. Hooray... now if only my Industrial Revolution and King Henry VIII lessons go as well tomorrow. it really is very hard remembering which subject i am teaching, but the kids bear with me and we struggle through together.

oh, and last weekend, i had my first run into people i know... it was crazy. London is big and to actually see someone you know... crazy. so, story goes, I had my Happy Half Birthday Party (0r at least drinks at a cute pub in Notting Hill). a new friend from spanish class, Nick, came along and so did a person who schelle and I met in Copenhagen. Then on Saturday after i went shopping (and bought some skinny black jeans, aren't i now trendy!) I ran into Nick on the bus on the way home. then on the short walk from the bus to home I ran intoDan (the guy from Copenhagen. crazy!!! and really quite refreshing for london.

anyways, Schelle was away over the weekend in Budapest with Beth and Beth is coming to London this weekend. It will be really good to see her again and go party party in Londontown.
ok, so i think that is enough for the moment. there are probably a lot more things i could be telling you, but i can't think where to start at... so, some photos instead.

hasta luego.

more stonehenge shots.

and welcome the dutch photos from the weekend.

to check out me driving on the wrong side of the car (tongue out for concentration, hehe, didn't know i did that!) and more check out this website!

http://www.scoutingwasa.nl

click on nieuwe foto's NaWaKa en Stonehenge. then click on foto's patrick to see me driving. or just have a look at Patrick, Arnout and Sjoerd's photos.

ENJOY!!!! it really was a fun weekend.

xx

happy 1 year in the house

hello kiddies,
well, i have just reached my year in the house. My my, how time is still flying!!! it really is! i don't feel like i have been gone for very long and i have already been living at 62MG for a whole year!

as i said, it was great having Louis and Jose here for a visit and now we are back to normal (well as normal as we can be!). here is a photo from the Kensington, one of our many local pubs, where of course, we sometimes go on mondays for 241 mains.

Then on saturday morning Schelle, Christina and I went to a Walkabout to watch the swannies game at 5:00am. And well, it sucked when we lost. oh well, better luck next year ay! (not that i really follow AFL, but i had my pie and VB at 5:15am and watched the whole match!) After the match, we went back to sleep, then had a yummy second breakfast at Hampstead Heath before heading to watch World Trade Centre... INTENSE. and then on the way back we found some hair dye. So, i managed to persuade Chris and Schelle to dye random blonde bits in my hair (for old times sake, you can't see them until my hair is up, so not heaps radical) whilst we watched out lovely Johnny Depp. ahhhhh, what a lovely weekend we had!

and now, back at school. just started up a singing club on tuesdays, that went quite well today. 9 children turned up (which isn't bad seeing as we only had about 38 at school today). and on friday i am going to celebrate my happy half-birthday. so lots of fun stuff happening.

hope you are all keeping well. any news, let me know!
love ya all
deev

mat, me, clem, louis, schelle, jose and mat (across the front) at the Ken on monday evening last week. and below, what are mat and jose up to?? (never want to know with those two!!)

my pie and VB at 5:15am... never to early!! ha. and me, Schelle, Chris and Priscilla at the swannies match... go the swans.
hope you enjoy the piccies!!! xx

nights out

so, monday night was a fabulous one because we went to the pub with 2 ex housemates (Jose and Louis). And besides the fact that Marion was not there, it was just like it used to be when i moved into the house almost a year ago... it truely was beautiful, beautiful, it's beautiful it's true!

oh and then last night schelle and i went to see 'We Will Rock You' at the Dominion Theatre. I thought it was quite a clever show and well, the voices were really strong!! i think it is quite possibly one of the best shows i have seen (talent wise). i have been disappointed with some of the voices and enthusiasm in other shows casts, but man, these guys were FANTASTIC!!! really did rock me (ahhh).

ok, well, back to the school work. i am teaching history and RE today, so need to get my head around that.

love you all
deev

the joys of being a high school teacher...

walking past students and hearing them talking about you being well fit. crazy world we live in!!

a weekend of firsts...

ok, so photos first, then info. well, this first one is the gang, (i have made anglisised the names to make it easier for me). back row is... derrik, sjoerd, kun, robbie, umm, then front line, martin, gisella, partick and me. and then arnout at the front. the photo below is me sjoerd and arnout at the campfire... ahhhh, arnout was the first member of the gang i met.

me and arnout in the car on the way to stonehenge. are we there yet??? and then look, on the mountain, is that a horse??

my sock puppet eating stonehenge (don't ask the story there!!! yes i am strange!) and below, stonehenge before it was eaten... he said it tasted lovely, a bit crumbly, but lovely.

dismantling the tent.... ahhh, our home for 2 nights (8peoples worth! and 6 of them boys, mmm, oh and we had no running water at the camsite... mmm, breathe in the fresh air!) may i present to you, stonehenge!! (below)
ummm, robbie, is that peanut butter and sugar??

so, here's the story! last weekend was my first visit to stonehenge, my first weekend camping in the UK and my first weekend driving in over a year.

the first challenge i arose to was driving. Now, whilst that doesn't sound like too daunting, i haven't driven overseas EVER before and the friends i went to stonehenge with drive a car from holland. so, i get to the car on friday night (just after midnight) to hear 'here are the keys, you're driving'/ to which i reply, 'you have to be joking', 'nope, i'm not'. so in i hop to the left hand side of the car where i am meant to sit to drive and contemplate the car most of which is to my right. a very foreign experience for me. the gear stick was also on the right, so when i went to put the car into reverse, i used my left hand. Patrick tutt tutted that, so i had to try and use my very unco-ordinated right hand. oh, and english roads are in miles and this car was in kms, just another trick y thing to figure out. well, i am really proud of myself. i drove a manual car down to our campsite on the english road, stalling only once at the beginning of the journey and not crashing. Hooray for me. (patrick has a photo of this i will put up, i look to be concentrating very hard!! oh and thank you arnout, for being very positive with me whilst i was driving! i do like the game stay on your side of the lane!!!

the next first was camping. i had a great weekend and it only rained once on sunday morning when we were asleep in the tent, so not too bad. and i know stonehenge is just a bunch of rocks, but the people i was with made it a really enjoyable experience.

so, got to the campsite, sat by the fire, met a whole heap of dutch people (there were 8of them all up) and chatted for a while before heading to bed. it was not too cold which was lovely. then saturday, was Patricks birthday, so we gave him a cake in bed. and jumped in the car ready to find a nice place for breakfast. ended up having our picnic breakkie outside a golf course. then onto the rocks! they were beautiful. but they are unfortunately no longer there (note my piccy of my sock puppet eating stonehenge). oh well, sorry to those who never made it there and now never will!!! hehe. the rest of the day was spent driving around looking at chalk horses in the countryside and generally having a laugh in the cars. then back to the campsite for a lovely bbq, sleep, yet another good camp breakfast and then unfortunately, say goodbye to my dutch friends. (some of them quite new friends).

oh this weekend was also a first for trying peanut butter sandwich with sugar on it.

so i have just come back from a great weekend and wanted to share the experience with you.

hope you are all well
love deev