Everyone should take a holiday...

OK I'm back from my 3+ weeks of glorious holidays...

Now, about our lovely holiday... three and a bit weeks spent with some wonderful friends... it couldn't have been more perfect. We had really great weather, even better food and some mighty fine whisky - both irish & scottish, and some amazingly fun conversations, particularly whilst driving in our rental car with bitchin' Betty (our GPS).

First up was a brief stay in Singapore -a great city, fantastic food & exceptionally nice people, amazing buildinggs and a shopper's paradise.

Next is where we met up with friends Richard & Heather in Rome. A city filled with architectural and historical masterpieces. Again great food and drinks.

Next came Ireland - its just as green and beautiful as everyone says it is... and the people are just so friendly. The castles we stayed in were absolutely bloody fantastic, the Guinness and other assorted irish beers and who could not forget the mighty fine irish whiskies.... hmmm yum!!! And the irish back roads were an unforgettable memory in themselves... thanks to bitchin' Betty who led us through some amazing scenery...

Thankfully, much to MBH's packing skills, 50+ aussie animals (aka toys) now reside in Ireland and England and that gave us a whole suitable to fill with assorted goods and chattles which were accquired throught the journey.

And the main reason why we were there in the first place, M&M's wedding blessing was a joyous event... and I even got to meet the legendary L'irlandais, (an AUGI volunteer) who happened along at the Old Jameson distillery.

After leaving Ireland, we were all bound for London town, well the countryside of Kent actually was where we stayed but we did manage to visit London for a day, where there city was abuzz with construction work and tower-cranes dotted the skyline. The visit started off with a trip on the London Eye – complete with perfect viewing weather, which gave rise to perfect scenic shots of the Thames, “Big Ben”, the houses of parliament, Buckingham Palace and even the amazing “gerkin” building.

Next was a quick trip to the London Museum, to view the amazing “Last Emporer” and the terracotta army collection. Before darting off to a local pub and meeting up with two AUGI CWC comrades, Steve and “Avatart”, we managed to sneek in a little bit more culture and experience the joyous evensong in St Paul’s Cathedral – simply amazing.

A couple of other castles were on the must-see visiting list, these being Leeds Castle and Hever Castles – whilst they were great in their own right, they pailed into insignificance after seeing the magestic Canterbury Cathedral. On our last night together, before we each headed off to different parts of the globe to get home, we went to this great Indian restaurant, where M & S schemed to see “how hot I could eat Indian food”. Thankfully their plan backfied and I managed to eat all that was put in front of me unscathed. Man, that food was hot and great!!!

Mind you were thought we were going to be stranded in the UK after getting caught on /in the world’s largest carperk, “the M25”. Allowing 90mins to complete a 60 drive to Heathrow seemed a perfect ending UK portion of the trip, that was until we got caught up in a 3.5hour traffic snarl but we managed to escape the M25 and thanks again to bitchin’ Betty managed to return the rental car and get to the airport with less than 60mins to spare… all that was left of our glorious holiday was 3 more wonderful days in Singapore with nothing to do but relax at the pool, eat and shop… ah what a life and what a great trip! :-)