Snowing in Birmingham

This is the Punto hunkering down in Birmingham just after we arrived home from the Peak district. Ben had a 100 pound bet with one of his nurses that it would snow, but i doubt she will pay.

Dirty Lane

Saturday night when we arrived in Castleton was St Patrick's day so we set out to the local pub for dinner and some Guiness. To get there we walked about half a mile along a track called Dirty Lane which went across sheep paddocks and around a dairy. (Ben is standing on the driveway into the farm, not Dirty Lane)
We had dinner in the Cheshire Cheese Pub (Innkeepers Pie and Rogan Josh) followed by numerous Guinness brews and Magners Irish Ciders. Ben scored a St. Patrick's day Guiness hat.
At the end of the night we had to stumble our way back to the farm along Dirty Lane which by this stage was pitch black. We stumbled along holding hands in the freezing cold getting buffeted by gale winds and sleet while being ankle deep in mud and cow poo! Lucky we had those drinks to keep us warm and brave! Anyway, we eventually found our way back and had a lovely warm room and bed waiting for us.

Dunscar Farm B&B

This is me in the Dunscar Farm B&B we stayed in for the night in the Peak District. It was really cute with an awesome view of the surrounding farm. I'm wearing the bathrobe you get to wear while you're there.
We had our own private bathroom and got a lovely English breakfast cooked by the farmer.
It's a functioning sheep farm with lots of stone walls dividing the paddocks.

Peveril Castle

This is Ben in front of Peveril Castle Keep. Peveril Castle was built in 1068, so it's pretty old. It's a castle ruin above the town of Castleton (named after the castle). Underneath the castle is the Peak Cavern. The castle is high on the hill and has great views of the surrounding hills, including Mam Tor, and Castleton.

Springtime Snow!

Blizzard - Cave Dell

Suddenly a strong gust of wind blew through the valley and with it came a lot of stinging snow. The wind was so strong that corinne could barely stand up and you could not look straight ahead. We crawled over to a rock wall with a small cave and stood tight against the wall to get out of the wind and snow. We had to wait about 15 minutes before coming out.
You can see some sheep high on the left and also the keep of Pevril Castle on the right.

Spring time in Cave Dell, The Peaks District

This is Cave Dell a valley in the Peak District near Castleton. We went to the Peak district for the weekend and stayed at a B&B on a farm near Castleton. The area is great with all stone houses and lots of pubs, walks etc. It was pretty cold but we had some warm gear. we went for a short walk up this dell.
Towards the top of this path a few grey clouds came overhead.

See next blog for what it looked like 5 minutes later.

The Mighty Fiat Punto

This is the Fiat Punto we have from our jobs in Birmingham. It is a little two door car but it is perfect for what we do. I do about 50 miles per day (80kms) so i really need for every day travel. It goes well and is comfortable.

Cheers

A Tribute to my Australian Rabbits

This is just a sentimental photo of my rabbits from Australia. I bred these rabbits at home in Wodonga, Victoria. The parents, not in the picture, were rodger and daisy. These rabbits are: Browny - the fatty on top of everyone, Whitey up the back hiding, Flash the tan one on the left and Grey next to flash.
The first thing you must think is - Damn Ben has good names for his pets - I know! Sadly whitey later dissapeared when some bozo left the door open one night - it may have been me. I am certain whity now lives in one of the parks of wodonga - he was always a bit slow though.

Our bunnies are now living with friends in wodonga and I am sure they are very happy.
Hi to all my favourite nurses at home too, Brookey, Ellen, Bec, Phoebe, Tara, Danielle and anyone else I have forgotten.


PS I also miss my special friend Snowbert!
Cheers

The Bearwood Flat

Here are some photos of our little flat above the Bearwood Veterinary Clinic. It's small but has everything we could need and considering its free we think its pretty good! I'm working in the clinic below us which means I can wander up and down for lunch or to watch some TV...it's pretty cruisy. Ben has to drive about 20-40 minutes to his Castle Bromwich clinic.

Haircut accidents

Hi, this is a quick one just to show you all what my lovely wife did to my hair the morning we left for the UK. I asked her to trim the extra bits around the edges but she thought maybe i needed a reverse mohawk up the middle. We then had to shave this ridiculous patch off completely to get some continuity. I now look like an A-Class bogan from, well you can all think of places you know.Luckily it is growing back but not the best start to a trip or a new job.
The cut actually seems to suit birmingham though.

Birmingham

We've arrived in Birmingham where we will be living and working for the next 6 months. We are only a 2 hour train ride from London so we can go back and shop whenever we want! This is a picture of our bedroom above the clinic. We are living on the third storey of a terrace house where the bottom level is the Vet clinic where Corinne is working. Ben is going to be working about 30 minutes away in Castle Bromwich. Our flat is pretty good and we have a brand new Fiat Punto to drive around in.
We are now the owners, directors and staff of Warnick & Brunner Ltd our Veterinary Consultancy company!
We start work tomorrow.

Cheese!

This is the cheese we bought at Harrods! They were fantastic and stunk out our whole room.

Harrods

This is Harrods a famous and expensive department store. Of course we had to see Harrods while in London. Ben had to carry his backpack in his hand when we went in....we're still not sure why. There is a ridiculous wax statue of the owner 'Dodi Fayed' at the entrance. There are tonnes of gorgeous clothes and accessories but they're all very expensive. We loved the food hall most of all. The cheeses were especially impressive and we bought a few including Munster, Crottin de chevre and a rotten washed-rind goat camembert- very stinky but delicious. The food hall is massive and awesome but you aren't actually allowed to eat anything you buy inside it. We had to go outside to eat our purchases.

Princess Diana Memorial

This is Princess Diana's memorial in Kensington Park. I always loved Diana so I had to see her memorial but I wasn't very impressed with it. It is basically a watercourse in a large circular shape with water running from the top down. The water runs down in two different directions and goes through rough patches and finally calms at the bottom which is meant to symbolise her life. It's a bit of a strange monument but women don't usually get monuments so it was an honour for her to get one.

Prince Charles

While we were walking around Buckingham Palace a police escort stopped traffic on the main road and a couple of black jags whizzed past. In the first black car, sitting in the back seat was Prince Charles! They came from Clarence House where he resides.

Buckingham Palace

This is me at Buckingham Palace. When you're in London you should always get a picture of Buckingham Palace. There were armed guards with automatic weapons out the front. It wasn't a very impressive building really.

The Parks

This is Ben in one of the many parks we walked through. This is Green Park which is right near Buckingham Palace. This is where we saw all the squirrels! We allso walked through Hyde Park, Kensington Park and St James Park. That's a lot of walking. The parks show classic European spring weather with bare trees and lots of daffodils and crocuses (bulb flowers). The parks are huge and a really nice relaxing place to be in the middle of such a huge city.

London

Ben was desperate to put in his squirrel pictures so I'll put in now that we have arrived in England!
Our plane flights over went well and even though we struggled with some jet lag we are really enjoying London. It is a fantastic city...really vibrant, cool and exciting! The weather has been great, blue skies and sunshine, but quite cold (about 5-10C).
We've done lots of sight-seeing already while organising all our Vet things. This is Big Ben in Westminster where we also saw Parliament House and Westminster Abbey. (If you double click on the photo you can see it full-size).
While we were there we organised our MRCVS which means we are now English Vets!

Eating

More squirrel action, this little guy was eating a peanut which he dug out of the ground before he was scared off by a dog

The Squirrels of Hyde Park, London.

This is a beautiful squirrel we saw in Green Park near Hyde Park in London. There are squirrels everywhere and they are super cool, cute and very fast moving. If you have seen the movie "Over the Hedge" they are just like that. I am very proud of this photo, it came out very well.
We spent this day looking at Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Green Park, Kensington Park and a few other things.