Moose on the Move!

Well, the last couple of months since our previous post have flown past. We've been busy enjoying the tail end of summer and trying to get the most out of our time here.

So we'll just out-line the main events of the past months - lets start with September.

Firstly, we had a visit from Leia and Dave. Dave we know from Uni in Perth, he has been living and working the last three years in Japan but has finished there now and is off to his next adventure. He was visiting Leia (and his brother) in London and so the two of them came down for the weekend. He looks just like he did three years ago!! It was fabulous to see him. We had a quiet weekend around Exeter. Rosie was in being serviced - so driving was out of the question, but we ate by the river and explored the city. Dave was a little sick so it was really a quiet few days.

The following Monday (5th Sept) the new school year began here in England and I bravely drove out to my new school. Although in true Elke fashion, I'd forgotten what time school started. Therefore, not wanting to make a bad impression I arrived about an hour early and had to sit and read in the car until the rest of the staff turned up.

It is a small country school in the middle of Devon. It's about a 45 minute drive from Exeter through some lovely countryside, past cows and sheep and other farming parafernalia. And - how sweet is this?- it is on Farmer Frank's Lane. Yep, a real country village. Beautiful!!

I've been out there every Thursday afternoon since, teaching a Yr 5/6 class art. The class has some lovely students and I am really enjoying the time out there. It is very different from teaching in a high school though, the excitement levels are different and so are the things they get upset about. The kids in primary school cry at the drop of a hat!! It's incredible.

In the last month I've also been doing a mosaic course nearby - it's something I've always wanted try but hadn't got around to before. So far I've made a small piece with a frog in it, and have almost completed the inside base of a shallow terracotta dish. I'm loving it, even the small glass shards that keep being shot off across the room...

Half way through September we got a visit from some other Australian friends living in London. Ben, Kelly, Mark and Sharon all came down on the train to spend a weekend in the south west. This was the fullest that the house has been since we moved in. It was a fun weekend.

We took them (somewhat unimaginitvely) to Beer. Here Ben and Kelly saw their first really pebbly beach and Mark got buried. I decided that today was the day to try some of the local scrumpy so we bought a few different kinds, Bonking Billy, Rampant Rosie and Cripple Cock. The last one depicts a rooster leaning on some crutches and the line underneath suggests that it is a toe curler.


On the way home we stopped past the Donkey Santuary - yes it is a real place - and patted the donkeys. They all looked significantly warmer in their furs than we were. After dinner we tried the Bonking Billy. No two ways about it - that stuff was horrendous! It was a suspisious yellow colour, the fumes made our nose hairs retreat in fear the the liquid itself tasted much like I imagine the juice from a jar of pickled onions would taste - but stronger.

That week, after sending the four Aussies back home to London, we got to know some of our nearby neighbours a little better.

Ben and Dayna live around the corner to us in what used to be an old barn or stables, either way there are some really big doors in their bedroom and there is an odd pulley type thing on the front of the house....

We had met Ben in the street several times and were invited over for dinner, after a very brief consideration we decided that taking the left over scrumpy along would not be a good way to make friends. Dayna is from eastern Australia but has been living over here for a last couple of years. It was actually a really fun evening and it turns out that Dayna and I have a few things in common, we both collect empty jars and boxes (just in case) and are both interested in various crafts.

It was while Chris was descibing how, the coming weekend, he would be getting up very early to listen to the Australian Rules Football Final on the radio that they really won a place in our hearts. They offered for us to go to their place and watch the final on their widescreen TV on Sky. We said thanks but reminded them how early it started. 'No problem' said they, 'We'll be out this weekend anyway, just take the spare key and let yourselves in'. How cool is that! How cool are these people!

So we did and that Saturday morning the 24th September we got up ridiculously early (thanks for calling and getting us up in time Mum!) and wandered around the corner in our PJs, breakfast bowls in hand to watch the West Coast Eagles play in their first Grand Final since 1994 (when they won).

This time... they didn't win.

Despite it looking quite likely a couple of times in the end they were just beaten by the Sydney Swans. Chris has been giving dirty looks to the local swans on the River Exe ever since... We had to take a drive to the Exmoor National Park in north Devon to help takes Chris' mind of it all.

October to follow.