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For my anniversary present, Susan brought me and indoor sky diving experience.
They didn’t have any weekend slots until next year so we both took a day off work and went to Milton Keynes beforehand.

Turns out England’s first fully designed city isn’t that exciting. In fact it’s a little dreary. It’s astounding so many car parks and ugly concrete buildings can be in one place. And not surprising it was perfect for the filming of Superman 4.
Anyway after looking at the indoor snow field and the various other amusements there we blitz our way to Bedford to avoid being late for the indoor sky diving.

Turning up to the old airfield base, we could understand why Bedford had the largest indoor skydiving facility in the world. They had converted an old RAF wind tunnel to allow you to experience short term weightlessness.

Kitted up with Helmets and dorky looking jumpsuits with handles for our instructors to pull we made our way to the wind tunnel. I was the first to experience “bodyflying” and also the only one who forgot to keep my mouth closed. It was excellent fun though and left Susan thinking about buying more sessions for herself.

Last night for an anniversary present I took Susan to see The Sound of Music. I even organised a nice vegetarian restaurant for beforehand. However Susan’s main reason for wanting to go was to see Connie (the winner of the TV show “How to solve a problem like Maria”) However it was her week off.

Doh I was in a bit of trouble.

This weekend our good friend from work Nic got married. So we popped back to Bristol for her big day. It was a great party and we also managed to visit some friends from church. Sadly I ended up doing some work.. which was highly geeky. Unfortunately this is the joys of being on Production Support and having a laptop that can dial into the work network as long a broadband is available.
Thank God laptops on have certain battery lives and I forgot my charger.

Anyway Nics party was really good..the All Blacks lost to France which wasn’t so good.

Susan is quite into the BBC TV show about Kew Gardens. So much so that when we used to travel into London from Bristol she would get excited every time we hopped of the M4 close to Richmond where Kew is located. Not quite sharing her enthusiasm for trees or the 1.5 commute to get to the very opposite side of London.. I just had to bear with it, nod and hop on the tube this weekend.

When we did get there it was fairly impressive. Kew had been involved in many coups including stealing seed or plant to start growing valuable plants such as tea and rubber in order for Britain to overthrow the previous monopoly.
Now they seem to have a huge collection of Palm tress and some very nice greenhouses. Still it’s quite interesting and worth a look around especially if you are into plants or addicted to certain TV shows.

The Globe
On Thursday we went to see “Love Labours Lost” at the Globe Theatre in the south of London. The theatre was rebuilt by Sam Wanamaker and is as true to the original Elizabethan plan as possible. Even to the point that there is a large pen area were you can stand in the “cheap seats” to watch the plays for only £5. Of course a bargain like that we could hardly refuse so Susan and I rocked up and stood throughout the performance. The play was very good. However I don’t always know what is going on in Shakespeare plays.

Greenwich
This weekend took a boat ride. The weather was great, sky was unlondonly blue and the sun surprisingly out. It was nice hang out with the other tourists learning about London on the cruise ship and then hanging out at Greenwich where they had closed some of the streets for a festival.

Well we are in our Flat but been having a few issues getting our landlord to sort simple stuff like blinds for the windows. Hopefully we will get there in the end.

Leaving Party
We traveled back to Bristol this weekend in order to leave. Well goto our leaving party at least. It was pretty relaxed bring a plate affair that our friends Jon and Sally hosted. It was sad to be leaving everyone but good to catch up again. Everyone had chipped in to commission Sally to paint this amazing picture of Bristol that we are still looking for a frame for.

Day off
I have been working pretty hard so on Monday I had a day off in order to hang out with Susan who is at home looking for a job.
Our first stop was the British Museum. There was a special exhibition of the Chinese Terracotta Warriors. Great to see these guys and especially so amazingly close.

Later in the afternoon we when to St Pauls to check out the whispering gallery and the awesome views of London. Susan however chickened out when she saw the iron “see through to the bottom” stairs and decided she wasn’t going all the way to the top .