Ben and Corinne's Big Adventure: April 2009

25 April 2009

Liv and Downy's Wedding

Here are some photos of Anthony and Olivia Down’s Wedding. They ware actually Shannon and Myles’ photos as we did not take any. Also we apologise for not having that many of the actual Bride and Groom. They are all great photos and it was a Brilliant Day and weekend.
Congratulations to Both of You!

There i am impersonating a Jaguar

The Wedding Party on one of the Jags

The Girls hanging out at the Jetty

The Bride and Groom

Matty and Corinne and a slight hint of the Fantastic Blue dress

Rachy and Me just hangin about next to the car

Corinne looking Hot, was this a mistake or a carefully planned pose?

Rachy and Shan looking ?

The Mylo Man with the Shanny Shan

Jeff and Matty

14 April 2009

Here is a picture of a Fox that was sniffing around in our backyard yesterday. Alfie was extremely put off and meowed at the fox and looked quited miffed. The fox was pretty shy too and ran off quite quickly.

13 April 2009

Clams and Scallops

We bought a KG of Clams and 12 scallops from the Fishmonger in Leigh. They were alive and Fresh from the dirty Stinking Thames Estuary. We don’t actually know where they came from but they sure tasted great. We washed and scrubbed and let them sit so they would expel there wastes and then we cooked them up in a great little chowder.

The key to any good chowder is Fat. Buter and Cream and Scallops (clams) cooked in oil etc all go into it and make an irrisistable concoction. The scallops weighed about 500grams each (not really) and were a really juicy mouthful. The clams were good but the scallops really took the limelight. We have vowed to repeat this performance and want to try some razor clams too which are long skinny ones.

Cleaning the Clams

Scallops

Leigh-on-Sea and Hadleigh Castle

On Friday we drove into Leigh-on-Sea and explored a bit. We walked down to the old part of town along the waterfront and checked out some pubs which were all packed and also bought some fresh seafood - Scallops and Clams. We then had lunch at a little Italian cafe. We also walked around Hadleigh castle which sits in a 500 acre park in the middle of Hadleigh and Leigh. The park is quite impressive and the ruins are alright considering they are 800 years old.

The Church in Leigh

A boat, possibly a trawler down at the Leigh Seafront

Corinne looking windswept in front of the a Hadleigh castle tower, the sea in the background

Part of Hadleigh Castle

Alfie

Alfie is the clinic cat at our house in Essex. He is a large extremely fluffy Ginger cat and knows what he wants in life. He loves his morning feed, he loves sitting on the window sill surveying his garden domain and he loves sleeping in our bed, all day long. He is a great cat and meows when he wants something.

I am always very jealous when i see him because he always looks exceptionally relaxed and comfortable especially when he is lying on his back or snuggled in a doona (duvet).

Essex and Saafend

So we have not blogged for a while now, but we are back in the UK from our fantastic 7 weeks in Australia. We have settled now in Essex, Corinne had a week in Surrey 1st. We have a nice 2 bedroom flat and a garden and also a cat Alfie, he will get his own blog.

On the first day we arrived back Ann and Mark picked us up from Birmingham Airport (Thankyou again) and we chatted for a while with them back in Weston. We then made our way up to Leadenham, Lincolnshire to see Emma and Danny.
They are living in avery cute country village with a great little house and 2 pubs. We caught up and had a few drinks and tried so very very hard to party but having been awake for about 30 hours we were actually falling asleep with our drinks in our hands. I was sitting on the couch with a beer talking and then i woke up still holding my beer but my head slumped. We did manage to get to the pub though and talk a lot of crap before passing out.

We then made our way down to the South, i dropped corinne off in Surrey and made my own way to Essex in the Trusty Peugeot (pile of crap).

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The View from Emma and Danny’s back door, looking onto a great little garden complete with daffodils on a crisp spring morning.
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Emma and Danny missed us so much that they rocked up in Essex the very next weekend so they could show us the sites and we could do a pub crawl along the Soufend water front as well as some chav spotting which is hard not to do in Essex.
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Danny is just such a happy bloke, i am obviously less impressed in the back ground.
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Soufend (spelt southend but spoken saafend by the locals) is the home of greasy shitty english food. No where else excels so much in the creation of artery blocking, pancreas destroying food. Here i am dipping my battered sausage into my pie (actually pretty good).

Enjoing a rare moment of sun and heat (20 degrees) out the front of one of the many many pubs we went to.