Moose on the Move!

So - the last day of April. Of my goodness! Already?!?!?

Saturday, we were feeling a little bit blah, so we opened up our map book and went for a drive. We went to a herb farm, (which was mostly just a herb nursery), we found an exhibition of Rolf Harris artwork (he can actually paint really well, no cartoons to be seen) and then headed off to Dorchester to see the local Abbey. It was really awesome. Very old, very beautiful, with a really friendly volunteer curator who liked to answer our questions with her eyes closed. Perhaps she could think better if she wasn't looking at us.

On Sunday we took the day off and decided to do some more exploring. We headed to Farnham Castle (which has nothing to do with Johnny). It is (like a lot of the hisoric things we go to see) largely in ruins, but still very interesting. In particular the design and evolution of the castle is different. Where as many castles are built on the top of a hill for obvious strategic reasons, the people who built Farnham Castle decided to build where there was no hill. So they built the hill too. It was originally kind of the shape of a christmas pudding, (the hill, not the castle) and what is even more interesting, half the castle, which started off as essentially just a 'tower' about 20 metres by 20 metres, is actually underground - inside the hill. Later on someone else decided to build a wall around the hill to expand the castle. They built the walls straight up around the base of the hill and for some hundred years or so no one filled in the gap between the top of the 'christmas pudding' hill and the straight walls. Weird. Maybe they were tired after all the wall building.... It was mostly used as a residence by the church, but was also visited by various members of the royal family and it is interesting to think about what important decisions were made within its walls.

From there we headed south to a little place called Petersfield, mostly we went there because we have a couple of friends at home called Peter, and because it was near by. There was a lovely little lake in the middle of town where we stopped to have a cup of tea and watch the local boys throw sticks at the swans. Lovely. I was very close to standing up and tossing in one of the little boys.... Where were the parents? Ah, yes, they were abusing an old man (who was walking his dog), for looking at them wrong and complaining that the poodle was getting scared.

The following day we packed up camp and headed off. We decided that there was no reason for us to stay in Reading, we can get on the internet from anywhere in the country and we have our mobile phones - so what the heck... we decided to head towards Birmingham. Why? Just beacause. But on the way north we stopped in a place called Abingdon, just south of Oxford, to catch up with Jess and Jeff who had hired a car for the weekend. When we got there they had also hired a little motor boat and were toodling up and down the river. They were kind enough to pull in and pick us up so we could all toodle together! It was very pleasant!

That night we checked in to a campground just outside Birmingham, as we lay there in bed we realised that we were much closer to the motorway than we had previously thought. We could hear almost individual trucks and cars racing past as we drifted off to sleep.

Tuesday morning we drove south a little way to visit Coventry. We stopped in at the markets and bought Elke a jumper/cardigan thingy. Yay. It has a hood. Then we went back up and right into Birmingham. The shopping area here is quite extensive - but many of the same chain stores as other cities in England. We felt like we needed a little culture after all this conusmerism so we found the tourist information office and then went off in search of the BMAG - Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The walk was a nice one. BMAG is in a really old Victorian building with a wonderful set of sweeping stairs to get to the upper floor.

The first piece of artwork we saw on walking upstairs was really tricky to look at. At first glance it appeared to be a beautifully done perspective painting of three corridors leading away from the viewer, the walls of each were lined with various paintings. However, as soon as you took a step the corridors shifted and followed you around the room. And not just like the eyes on a portrait painting. It was hard to look at and move at the same time. It wasn't until you got up to within a metre or so of the piece and somewhat side-on, that you could see that the three 'corridors' were infact built out of the painting towards the viewer. So in fact the flat canvas was not flat but a series of three flat-topped pyramids pointing outwards. It is difficult to explain but was very interesting to look at. Apparently the artworks that appeared on the ways of the 'corridors' were a selection of the painter's favorites from within BMAG itself! Neat.

We also went to see an openair photographic exhibition. The photographs on show were from the 'Earth from the Air' series (which was also published in the West Australian newspaper some time ago). It was fabulous to see these big prints out in the sun decorating this particular walkway.

That night we visited the biggest grocery shop that either of us has ever been into. It must have been the size of a Bunnings warehouse (a big one)!! It took ages to find the milk and cola we were looking for.

Wednesday (4th May) we headed south towards Hertfordshire (which is just North of London). Elke had an interview in a place called Finchley (North London) the following day, so we figured staying just outside London would be a nice idea. On the way down, we decided to check out a few more places that looked like they may be of interest. The first place we stopped off at was Northampton. We had no real reason for stopping there, other than it has the same name as a town a little ways North of Geraldton, Western Australia. We have a few close friends from Northampton in Western Australia (which is largely a farming community), and so we wanted to get a postcard while we were there. An exceptionally funny thing that we found when we were there was that in the toilet of a local pub, there was a vending machine. That is not so unusual, as I am quite aware of such vending machines selling things such as condoms, shaving razors or mints. However, we were quite amused to find that the one in this pub sold 'naughty' inflatable sheep! We guess the local men of Northampton must be hard pressed to find affection in the town.

On our next stop, we came across one of the strangest towns either of us had ever been to. Milton Keynes is essentially one network of roads layed out in a grid. We tried to head to the "City Centre" by following the signs and drove straight through it without even noticing. It is not like any other town we had ever been to. The city centre consists of what appears to be a series of massive shopping centres. We didn't come across much in the way of historic looking buildings, and suspect that the town is possibly not as old as others in England. It has a feeling of being something like a "manufactured" type town. At least it looks as though it was designed, and quite possibly looked great, on paper. However, it doesn't have the same warm feel we have found with so many other towns. Maybe if we had stayed longer it would have felt that way, but, we needed to head on to Hertford.

Hertford (pronounced Hartford), is a really nice little town. It is not that far out of London, and on Thursday, we headed into the "big smoke" to get Elke signed up with a teaching agency. We drove into Finchley, had some lunch and Elke got ready for her interview. The interview was at 2pm, so Elke arrived a little early (to make a good impression and appear organised etc). However, the person who she was to meet (the same person who arranged the 2pm interview), was out at lunch and didn't return until closer to 3pm! In the meantime Elke was left in the foyer to fill out forms by herself. When the woman eventually came in, there was no apology for being late or anything. This was not a good first impression. Certainly not the level of professionalism or organisational skills you would expect from someone who is supposed to be finding work for you. As of now, we still haven't heard back from them regarding reference and police checks. Hmmmm. Hence, Elke is registering with another agency who is hopefully a little better :) More info on them later though ;)

The next couple of days we decided to stay around Hertford and use that as a base to apply for work, check out some other lovely local towns like Hatfield and St Albians and for Elke to do a "Secondary to Primary Conversion Course" in London. This is one of the few useful things that Elke did get out of her teaching agent friend. The company that she registered with has some free courses every now and then and on Saturday, they were running this course that taught you the basics of what it is like to teach in a primary school. After doing this course, Elke is now able to do some supply work in a primary school. This could be good as the kids might be a little easier to deal with that the bigger ones. Time will tell though.

After quite an enjoyable few days in Hertfordshire, we decided to head back towards the Reading area. This is where we had told Elke's teaching agent that we were likely to be based, and so we wanted to rush down there to make sure that we were in a position where Elke could get to a teaching job whenever her agent called. As I mentioned a little earlier though, we still haven't heard from this woman. Elke has been back in touch to find out where they are at with her reference and police checks. Elke's teaching agent was going to find out and get straight back to her. We still haven't heard :(

Rather than heading back to Reading and Wellington Country Park, we decided to head for Henley on Thames. It is a beautiful little place where we had spent some time a few weeks back.

We were lucky and had some awesome weather while we were there. We ran into a really helpful and chatty groundsman named Eric who we chatted to often and who answered quite a few questions we had about the local area and a few other things about England (such as confirmation of which bush was a stinging nettle...ouch). Eric was also a keen fisherman and so much of this advice was received while sitting beside the "fishing lake" which is regularly re-stocked with fish for campers and recreational fishermen.

We didn't do much while at Henley other than take off each morning to a nearby town called Marlow, where Chris would apply for jobs. Marlow is similar to Henely in that it is situated right on the river, is quite small and quite beautiful. We had a good look around the town while not hunting for jobs though. One time while at the library, Elke found they had a book sale on where you could fill a bag for a pound. It is quite surprising what Elke can squeeze into a bag. Our car now resembles a travelling library.

You can see and comment on all of our photos here.

On Friday morning while getting ready to head up towards Marlow for another day of the same....Chris got a phone call. It was from one of the recruitment agents he had dealt with on his very first job application serveral weeks ago. This time the agent had good news...the company had finally reviewed his CV and was interested in talking to him further about the position. This would be an interview done in person down on the clients site in Exeter in Devon. Whoooooooo Hooooooooo! Road trip to Devon and hopefully that would lead to a job! So we set off with a smile each and our fingers crossed. I think we laughed properly for the first time in a few weeks this day.