“I have picked up a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen. It is not to bad, it seems to be a more pratical approach to dealing with the volume of thing you have to do on a day to day basis. It handles things a lot differently than Covey and the 7 habits. ”
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“We are off to the farm today. The farm is Godstone Farm, it has the general farmyard variety of animals. “Its a nice Saturday night, my ADSL router just died so after a power reset me network is back in action. I have jsut been for a walk to the shops to get ice cream and chocolate, what else do you need “Im sooooo looking forward to the weekend. We are catching up with some friends so it should be nice and relaxing. Another busy day in worksville, spent a bit of time re-aranging my tasks. I found a intersting project dotproject, i am customising it for me so it is a more of a personal goal tracker. I will be writing two modules, a Sync on to sync with outlook for tasks and contacts and another for goal setting. Anyway Goals should be the first step in any project. Also found a really cool email interface, at http://www.oddpost.com Finally at home, time to relax and find an nice all in one server for windows….” “And a busy one at that, im not sure wether I am comming or going at the moment, my life is a list of tasks and patterns. All of the are shifting and my brain is having problems keeping up. I had a review of my Strengths today and it was really good. Here are my top 5.
There was no supprise there! Im also on a hunt for a nice gallery program, im using Gallery at the moment here is my photo album which im constantly being yelled at to update! Ill get to it eventually. Life is busy.” “I have no idea, so I figured the best way was to install one and work out A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “”blogging”" and someone who keeps a blog is a “”blogger.”" Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly. www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html So that means I am a blogger now, do I get a badge? Should I make some and sell them? How about a sticker? Oh well, I shall give it a go. Its the most I have written for a website in a long time!” “Dear all Time has flown again and I find myself once again wishing that I was more organised and more disciplined to write more often. The last letter I wrote was just before Christmas, so of course that was a long time ago and we have done a lot since then. The most exciting thing is that we did manage to buy the London flat that I talked about in the last email. We moved in in mid February and we are enjoying it a very much. It is always a nice feeling to own the place you live in, it gives you more scope to do what you want and put nails in the walls etc. The flat is in a renovated warehouse that used to product Bryant and May matches. Our flat is on the top floor, so much of it is built into the roof. It is very open plan, there are very few walls. Because of this the flat is built over 3 levels, the loungeroom and the kitchen are on the first level (as well as a small balcony), the bathroom and a galleried study are on the second level and the bedroom is on the top level. The kitchen and the bathroom are in need of a little work, so we will need to spend a bit of time on them, but otherwise apart from small things it is in pretty good shape. On the travel front we also have a few short trips to report. Over Christmas we went to the French Alps with two of our London friends, Dan and Tanya, and two of our Sydney friends, Nick and Carolyn. Apart from a disastrous trip there and back caused by delays at every turn, the Alps were wonderful. It was our first truly white Christmas. We stayed in a brand new Chalet with our friends and 6 other Brits. It was a ski holiday, but Jon and I were only thinking of the fact that we wanted to buy a lounge to sit on in our new flat, so we were uninspired to ski, as it is fairly expensive. Instead we relaxed a lot, played scrabble, walked around the mountain in –15C temperatures, watched bad American TV dubbed into French and German and generally just enjoyed the fresh mountain air. It was a lovely break, but I think that I would rather be in Aus cooking a Barbie than freezing in the French Alps! We then had a bit of a travelling drought because we didn’t want to leave our new house (and couldn’t afford to!) But over Easter we went on a bus trip over the English Channel by ferry to Brussels, Bruge, Antwerp and Amsterdam. Gillian, a school friend of mine who has been in London for a while came too, which was really good, as it was Gill’s first trip out of the UK since she got here late last year. The first day of the trip was mainly taken up by travelling, so we didn’t get to see that much, although the Dover-Calais ferry trip was a new adventure for us. The second day we walked around Antwerp, which is a quaint little Port town which is pretty in the centre, but the surrounds are very industrial. That afternoon we were taken into Brussels, the head city of the European Union. It is a really nice city with a lot of green spaces and plenty of new modern buildings to house the politicians of the European Union. The centre of the city is lovely. After wondering around for a while we felt that we had earned some waffles with chocolate sauce and ice cream, which were very nice! Later we had a Belgian beer in the centre square. Belgian beer is supposed to be the best in the world, and although nothing can beat a Toohey’s New, they don’t do a bad job. The following day we went up to Amsterdam. Jon and I had already been there so had seen most of the sites, so I indulged in a little shoe shopping (they have great shoes at about 1/3 of the London price). We also met up with Sarah (another friend from back home who is also in London) and her boyfriend Tony. During the afternoon we rejoined the coach and went on a tour to a little fishing town North of Amsterdam called Volendam. It is a very pretty town on the coast with its share of Dutch windmills, but was a little touristy for our liking. The following day was Easter Monday, time to head back to London. However on the way home we went via Brugge, which is a lovely little Belgian town. It has maintained most of its medieval buildings, has lots of cobbled roads and canals in the town. It was also extra lovely because it was early spring and all the flowers are starting to come out. One place we went to had a grass field full of daffodils. It is a really lovely town, and we were disappointed that we could only spend a few hours there. We will try to go back there sometime. Last weekend (the weekend after Easter) we were invited to the wedding of Matt (and American guy that Jon works with) and Marion (one of the only English people we know!). They had the wedding in a beautiful ancient church in Cornwall which was first built in the 11th Century! The wedding was lovely and we stayed in Cornwall for the weekend. So now the travel bug has hit we are very keen to do some more travel. Jon is going to Dublin for work next week, so we decided to go for the weekend, so that is the next trip. We also booked our ‘Summer holiday’ for a week to the Greek Island of Corfu at the end of May. So that’s the last 4 months in a nutshell. Hope that everyone is well. We miss you all. Love Jane and Jon” “Hi everyone Ok, ok, so I have been incredibly slack and haven’t written for ages. There is a lot to report which is actually why I haven’t written – we have had a very busy few months interspersed with trips and holidays, a houseful of people and a property purchase! So where do I start? I think here is as good a place as any. A few months ago we started getting emails from various friends from Oz saying that they were all coming at some stage – all independently and as it turned out nearly all at the same time! Some were coming for a holiday for a week or two, and some were coming on a more permanent basis to get a job and work for a few years. As the costs and culture shock of London are quite nasty and because all these people are our friends our lounge room became a dormitory – and at the most we had 7 people in our 2 bedroom flat! It is hard living with so many people as it decreases your personal space – but it also increases the necessity to socialise more (I mean go to the pub and drink [for the uninitiated]) which has had its toll on our sanity, and on our hip pocket! But it was great to see everyone – and we are now down to only having one guest so it is much better now! Jon has 5 weeks a year holiday that he must use at work or else he loses them, and although we felt like we had had more time off than that because we have done so many trips in the last year, Jon found that he had to use 2 weeks of it. Initially we wanted to go to America where our friend Megan was studying, but following the recent events we decided that we would go somewhere with sun instead. So we looked around for a place to go, but all of the affordable places with sun seemed to be in places like Turkey etc which we weren’t sure what would happen in those countries should there be a war (these decisions were being made sometime in mid September, so a world war could not be ruled out!) So against our better judgement and also against advice from everyone we asked, Jon and I decided that November (ie Winter) would be a great time to drive around and see some of the UK. We hired a car for 2 weeks and set out on our road adventure. We had some time before bought a book on walks in the countryside and we intended to do some of those. So we started out at the Roman town of Bath, very pretty and very cold! The night we arrived was fireworks night (good luck rather than good timing). So we saw the fireworks, and then in the morning set out for walk number one in the Cotswolds. The walking was somewhat hampered by the mud and the threat of rain and then also by a bull which was alone in a paddock that we were supposed to walk through (according to the map). I was ready to risk the bull,(it was only a little one) but Jon decided that it would not be a good idea, and that instead we would walk up the biggest, steepest hill ever to avoid it. We got to the end of the walk somewhat more tired than expected. And I had begun a new craze of falling over once and once only on each walk (it’s a relief when I’ve fallen and got it out of the way), so was really dirty. After an uneventful night in Bristol we headed to Wales. We went via Cardiff and were too lazy to find somewhere to park the car so we just drove around for a while so we could say that we’ve been to Cardiff. We then headed to the wilds of Wales where my boss has a little weekender stone cottage set in the middle of cow paddocks separated by ancient stone fences. It was absolutely beautiful and very cold, but the best thing was that we were there for the first snowfall. We stayed there for 2 nights and then it was off to the Lake district. The Lake district was a highlight of the trip. It is really beautiful at that time of year – the leaves were falling off the trees and the place is full of little lanes that run alongside a lake that makes you feel like you’re in a scene from a car ad (with the wind blowing the leaves up behind you as you drive along). We did more walking in mud, more falling (me anyway) and it really was beautiful. On one walk we were waling through a paddock past a small dam that was frozen over on the top. Jon and I discovered that the art of skimming rocks was much easier when there is a layer of ice! While we were in the Lake District we had dinner in a little Italian restaurant, and they asked us to sign the guest book – there was a signature of someone in Wagga (where Jon’s parents live). Very small world. The Lake District is quite far North, so we decided that while we were up that way we should just pop over to Scotland. So we decided that we had to see Loch Ness (which is very far North) and it just looked pretty much like the 5 other Lochs that we saw on the way there. But I did have my photo taken with the Loch Ness monster in an Information Centre – which I guess is a reasonable consolation?! The area of Scotland that we went to was beautiful and some of it was very craggy. The Lochs themselves do not look that much different from Wyangala Dam (near Cowra) but some of the other countryside is really beautiful. The people are also great, they have a great sense of humour and are much nicer than people in London! After a few days in Scotland we decided that it was time to start heading back down towards London (slowly). We did a walk which we started way too late in the day and we got lost in the woods which was pretty scary because it was also getting dark and we kept startling pheasants which ran away and then we in turn were startled. After eventually making it to the other side of the woods and back to the car we found a little hotel to stay in in the town of Seahouses (that’s the name of the town). We then drove further South the following day, stayed in York (no sign of the 10,000 men marching up to the top of the hill and down again) which is a beautiful town which has managed to preserve most of its medieval buildings and castles etc. It really is a beautiful little town. On the second last day of the trip we were driving to Sherwood forest (home of Robin Hood) and our car broke down. The car was automatic and would not go out of 2nd gear, so we had to drive it really slowly to Nottingham to get it repaired. To cut a long story short they couldn’t fix it and we had to have it replaced with another one which we drove back to London. So, although the holiday was not in a sunny spot it actually was a pretty time of year to be travelling because of falling leaves and snow on mountain tops (and from time to time snow on us). There was also the benefit of going to places and being the only guest in the Bed and Breakfast. I think if you were looking for mud, it was also the best time of year (although I don’t know why you would be looking for mud). So we came back to London and spent a few more weeks eating out and partying. The Megan that we were going to see in the States had moved to Finland for a few days to study, and since it was nearby, Jon and I popped over to Helsinki for the weekend to see her. We arrived in Helsinki to –4 degree temperatures and the place was covered in snow! It was very cold and it was snowing while we were getting to the hotel. Our hotel was well chosen (a fluke really) because it was right in the middle of town. Jon and I looked around the shops and later met Megan who arrived shortly after we did. We went to a great restaurant down the road from the hotel which had a series of small rooms to eat in, each containing a tractor or part thereof! Very strange. But the food and the atmosphere were great – Jon had a hard time choosing between the reindeer and the moose – but since it was almost Christmas he chose the deer! Megan and I had more traditional meats. The next day we did a tour around Helsinki. It is a fairly small city with plenty of open space and it is very modern. We saw a modern church that had been dug out of a rock and had a huge dome ceiling. We also caught a boat out to a snow covered island just off shore. The island has an old fort and we spent about an hour looking around before we decided that the boat back to Helsinki would be warmer! But it really was beautiful and great to be out on the water, even though it (the water I mean) was literally beginning to freeze. The Finns are lovely and can all speak English and are all more than willing to do so. One waitress was so embarrassed that she had greeted us in Finnish – she should have known we were English speakers! Megan came back with us to London and stayed in the dormitory (lounge room) for a few days. The next big excitement is that I couldn’t contain my property purchasing habits any longer so we have decided to buy a flat in London rather than paying off someone else’s mortgage. We looked at a few areas that would have meant that we could only afford a box, and then happened upon a place called Bow which is in the heart of the East end, but is (hopefully) a little up and coming. We looked at a flat there a few weeks ago in a large warehouse conversion development and really liked it – but when we put an offer on it it was already sold. We were devastated because the development has a few hundred apartments, but we really liked this layout because it was bigger and also had a balcony. So I kept my eye on all the agents and one came up last week, exactly the same layout – and in much better condition and with the added bonus of a car space (good for resale). So this time we put an offer on it on the spot so we didn’t miss out! We are just waiting for all the legal stuff to happen (it is much more risky here because either party can pull out at the last minute) but hopefully we might settle in January! The flat is actually on the top level (the agent called it a Penthouse!) but the building is huge and there are actually about 100 of them so it kind of takes away from the exclusivity of having a Penthouse! The flat is over 3 levels, and is all open plan – photos soon when we move in! So there you have it – the story of our lives for the last few months. I really hope you are all well and the long letter hasn’t bored you to death. Most of all have a wonderful Christmas and I hope to see you all soon! Best wishes Jane and Jon” “Hi everyone I have had some complaints about our lack of contact, so I am going to attempt to cover all that we have done in the last few months in this one email. We haven’t done much in London, so I guess I’ll focus on the trips that we have been doing around the place. Our first trip (since the last email) was a weekender to Paris. Peter Laidler, a friend of Jon’s from school has been living in Ireland and had come to London on his way to Amsterdam on a holiday. He said that he would be in Paris for the weekend, so we decided that we would not be able to contain our jealousy, so invited ourselves along. We also ran it past 4 of our Aussie friends here in London and the idea attracted an overwhelming response, everyone wanted to come. So we booked our Eurostar (train) tickets and were due to leave the following Friday night. Most of us had to leave work a little early to get to the station on time, except one of us, Emma, not well known for being on time. When she was phoned a 6pm, the time that we were all supposed to meet she was still at work, not realising the time. That was only the beginning of the comedy of errors, she bought the wrong ticket, was asked by the inspector to pay the difference, realising she had no money on her had to queue in the Friday night cash machine line, then queue again to pay the extra for her ticket. She arrived about some time later puffing, with only 2 mins to spare until boarding time! We took our seats in the train, and the journey was quite pleasant, except for the fact that the foot-and-mouth outbreak basically prevented the food car from selling anything at all, especially if it contained meat! We arrived at about 11.30pm and stood in the Taxi line for ages and finally got a taxi to our hostel. The hostel was ok except for the archetypally rude and inflexible French man who was on the desk. After waking up Pete who was already in the hostel, we checked out our rooms which had carpeted walls and a rather open plan bathroom arrangement, ie: a shower in the corner of the room (luckily it had a shower curtain). We woke up in the night to the sound of a group of adolescent French school children who though that 4.00am would be a good time to run loudly down the corridor. Little did we know that that would not be the last of them . . . After a breakfast of baguettes we went out to discover gay Paris. Our first stop was a river cruise along the Seine. It was rather pleasant, although cold, and we had a good view of many of Paris’s landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and lots of apparently famous bridges. After lunch we hit the shops, although with Prices higher than London we didn’t buy much. We then walked to the Eiffel Tower to climb it (well, catch the lift really) in time for sunset. The sunset was somewhat wet, but we had a pretty good view of the city. The group had at some point in the day gained an extra person, as some of the group had met Jackie, a kiwi, on a tour bus. This proved the camaraderie between the Southern Hemisphere countries, and she joined us for the rest of the evening. We then set out to find a French restaurant; we were looking for frog’s legs and snails, but had to settle for crepes. We weren’t disappointed though, the food and service was excellent and we left suitable full, and perhaps a little drunk as well. While Jon and I helped Jackie find a cab the others headed back to the hostel. They wanted revenge on the French school children, so went to their rooms and were a little louder than usual. The French man on the desk took it out on me and Jon, saying that there were some poor tired school children in the hostel who were sleeping (little darlings). Again we were woken up several times in the night by them until Jon put his head out the door and gave them the serving they deserved, which sounded even more vicious considering someone was yelling at them in a foreign language! After another baguette breakfast and yet another run-in with a different French guy on the desk, Jon and I set off alone to check out Paris. We caught one of the open-top tour buses (not a good idea to sit upstairs in winter) and we spent most of the day hopping on and off the bus, always sitting upstairs in a quest for better views. We saw the overrated shopping strip of the Champs-Élysées, the square where Marie-Antoinette lost her head, the Notre Dame cathedral etc. Paris is a nice town, with many more historical monuments than you would expect (there is more than just the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame), and I believe with the beautiful river and the street stalls would be better enjoyed in summer. It was indeed very cold, and you should keep away from the French people! We made it back to the train at the end of the day where we met the others and headed back to London. When we arrived the tube line to our house was closed off, and we joked that it must be another bomb, but it wasn’t until the next morning that we heard that the IRA had bombed the BBC building, in the same suburb as our house! Our next trip, 2 weeks later was to Amsterdam. Jon and two guys he works with were sent on a work junket on the Thursday and Friday, so of course I met them on Friday night and we all stayed for the weekend. Jon’s boss’s girlfriend, Marion, was also there. Amsterdam for me is up there with Munich and Berlin in the favourite city stakes. It does have a little less history (well we didn’t see much evidence of it anyway) than Germany, especially Berlin, but it has a similar laid back atmosphere. The city is built on a swamp, so has lots of canals, similar to Venice. Because the land that the city is built on is so soggy most of the buildings sport a noticeable lean, which makes it look quite comical! The city has over 1 million bikes, which is a lot considering the population is only 700,000, and they are chained to every single solid structure in the city. Most of them are old and rusty to prevent them from being attractive to thieves. Most people ride to work and everywhere else for that matter, so the traffic in the city is minimal. We did attempt to go to Amsterdam’s favourite tourist attraction, Anne Frank’s house (for those of you who don’t know Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who wrote a diary about living in a hidden room in someone’s house to prevent being herded off to a concentration camp) but because of the lack of other things to do in Amsterdam the line was way too long to face. So instead we went on a canal cruise, and just ate and drunk for the rest of the time. It was a very relaxing weekend and we had a very good time with Marion and the guys from Jon’s work, and we intend to do some other trips with them soon. The following weekend we went back to Australia for Jen and Marty’s wedding. I won’t go into the details of Australia, because you all live there and it might be rather dull. But we had a great time and were glad to catch up with everyone, but next time we hope to do a slightly longer trip! The wedding was also perfect and we had a great time (although for some reason we didn’t feel so well the next day!) After we got back we were both grounded with food poisoning, which we got simultaneously, and it wasn’t too pleasant. After thinking that we were both going to die in our flat in London and that nobody would find us for weeks, we pulled through and are both ok. After being back to work for only 5 days it was Easter, so time to go away again. We wanted to go somewhere hot, like the beach in Spain, but every other person in England had the same idea, so every flight under £600 was booked out. We went to Edinburgh instead, which wasn’t quite as warm, but it certainly has character. The first thing you notice is that the people are actually pleasant, and although they have funny accents and many of the guys wear skirts. Actually it is only the ones with bag pipes that wear skirts, and they are present on every street corner within coo-ee of a tourist. The second thing you notice is the amount of shops which sell tartan, kilts and other Scottish wool products. Once you get past that though, the city is very cool. Much of the 14th Century buildings have been preserved, and the castle which is at the centre of the town is very cool, although you begin to get a little bored of castles after a while in Scotland. We saw almost all there is to see in Edinburgh, the old town, the Grassmarket (basically a street full of pubs, we saw a lot of it), the new town, the castle, the palace, a few museums. We even went on a evening ghost-hunting tour on Friday 13th. The tour goes underground to some recently discovered 14th Century buildings in which poor families used to live in one underground room. Of course there were no ghosts, just a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. We also went on a tour out to the highland and Loch Lomond. We saw about another 10 castles, had a rather uneventful cruise of Loch Lomond, and heard some rather interesting stories about Scottish legends such as Rob Roy of recent movie fame. It was a very good day, although we were a little disappointed that we didn’t see more of the highlands. So that’s about it for this chapter in the Jane and Jon travel saga. Stay tuned for future episodes that will include Bordeaux wine tasting and camping in Devon. That’s all folks.” |
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Copyright © 2012 Sytone's Ramblings - All Rights Reserved |
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2004.07.09 
lets just say relaxation. Poor little Anja is not feeling well, a nice hot bath and she was put to bed. It was very cute, we tucked her in and she said byee when we left the room.”
I’m very practical around this type of stuff. So doing a search on google, I found the following.