Guy Fawkes Night

I've always heard of Guy Fawke's night but never realised what it was actually all about. It's quite a random event and all about the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5 November, 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were alleged to be attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.

It's a huge event in London (also known as bonfire night) and we had a plethora of fireworks invitations!! You just constantly heard homemade fireworks going on all week. Apparently Australia used to celebrate it but we know deem that it's too dangerous an event (now there's a surprise from our regulated society - although when you see how they go nuts with the homemade fireworks you can see how they might have had a point). Michelle my friend who's a teacher here had quite a few kids at school with injuries that week..

Our favourite one was at a local locked garden (cleveland square) which they open to the public for the night. It was a fantastic fireworks display (for an amateur event) and they served bbq and mulled wine as well as providing a massive bonfire which they let you around once it had died down to cook marshmallows.

Matt's Birthday, a football game and Dan!

This is just a motley collection of events..

Dan McLaughlin dropped by again and he and Josh went on a little explore on the bikes..

http://www.timeout.com/london/features/1706.html

Deer in Richmond Park

Just before Matt went home it was his birthday (which he was supposed to celebrate in Australia). We couldn't give him the Melbourne Races but we could give him...

A day at the football (Fulham home game Vs Sunderland)

with all you could eat hotdogs..

After game entertainment (thanks to London's 7m tide)

and some cocktails in Putney

Look at those gorgeous brothers..

Salzburg and a ryanair adventure

Quite a few months ago I lured Josh into committing to a weekend away in Salzburg (little did he know he was being led into my Sound of Music heavan)!!

Our luck gave us another glorious late Autumn weekend (as you'll see our luck didn't quite hold out for the whole weekend).

First up - a cable car ride up to the top of the famous peak near Salzburg called Untersberg. It was quite a risk as the day had clouded in and it looked like we might see nothing from the top. However, we took the risk and got in. For about 5 mins we were just travelling through cloud and then we broke through to the most incredible views. It felt like we had a view from an aeroplane... fantastic day!!

The Untersberg is also the mountain where Maria twirled and sang 'the hills are alive with the sound of music'.

Love a German lunch..

Coming back down..

On the way back from the cable car we stopped into the Lustschloss Hellbrunn. Basically the Palace was built for a German King (it's not important what his name was )[archbishop Markus Sittikus - JM] purely as a pleasure palace. He would get his guests really drunk at this specially made table (which would squairt water on everyone except the king at the head of the table and then would lead them through his amazing garden where he had all manner of fountains and secret water traps planted to amaze them!!

The garden is full of gorgeous fountains and grottos..

Look at these little things..

and I just love this Lion!!!

The other really important thing about the garden is that it's where they filmed 'I am 16, going on 17' with Ralph and Liesel. Yes, I renacted the song to devastating effect!!!

I was quite disappointed Josh would'nt pretend to leap around the benches with me (they don't let you inside anymore becauase too many people hurt themselves trying to do just that)!!

The town of Salzburg

Josh eating series #7

On the Sunday we travelled out to Bechtesgarten in Bavaria, Germany to visit the salt mines (the reason Salzburg was founded) and to travel to the Birds Nest. This was built for Hitler as a birthday present just before he died and is called the Birds Nest because it's built on a ridiculoulsy high peak and provides the most stunning views. Lucky this day we had clear skies..

Mum and Dad did this tour when they travelled through this region in about 1974?? I am assuming they didn't get suits with reflectors and the laser show!!

Meribel Gardens
When you're only somewhere for a weekend you have to fit a lot in. This is the famous Meribel Gardens notorious for the scene in the Sound of Music where the children jump up the steps and sing 'Do, a deer'.

That's the Salzburg palace (I'm not sure if anything happened from the Sound of Music there)

This is us on Monday catching a train across Germany after Ryanair cancelled our flight home and couldn't put us on another flight until Friday. We couldn't afford for me to lose a week off work, so we had to take the refund option and then go on crisis control to get home as quick and as cheaply as we could on such short notice. We don't know if we chose the best option (the internet cafe was closing soon), but we ended up getting a decently priced flight from Cologne to London for the next night.

The only was we had to get to Cologne. All I can say is - thank god we were in Germany. We had to catch trains from 9am to 7.30pm the next night to get there. We had no books with us, not much funds left and no clean clothes... However, we did get to travel up the Rhine which was spectacular.. (and then the camera ran out of batteries).

We finally got to Cologne, got to teh airport just in time to catch our 9pm flight. Only to have this one delayed once, twice... Until we finally boarded at 12.30am... and walked in our door at 3.30am Tuesday (that was a very productive day of work for me!!).

This is obviously before we got delayed (again)

Lucky it looks like we will be somewhat reimbursed through my work insurance..