Wazza's European Adventures!

G'day! Hi, I'm back, and here to continue telling you about my adventures that I recently had in Europe!

Did you know that after I had that double burger meal from McDonald's, it totally slowed me down? I wanted to do something, but didn't want to spend too much cash, as I am on a budget.

I went to the nearest shopping centre, and I really needed to! My brand new (3 weeks old!) Sony Vaio laptop (one of the best ones - y'know - touchscreen, flipper, the keyboard lit up), and I was really upset to see such a magnificent creation by one of my favourite companies go "kaput". I was angry. Pretty angry. I still have to go back to JB Hifi and talk to them! But anyway, I went and walked to Harlow Shopping Centre and decided to get the repairs underway myself.

"3 weeks, maybe a month..."

"GET OUT"

I left my laptop in the care of two guys that were more interested in World of Warcraft than a supermodel coming into the shop, which, in a way, kinda made it a bit more secure in my mind. I had walked all the way to the town centre, so I decided to walk around and find out what the place had to offer. 

Some really amazing shops, some usual shops, no K-mart or anything like that, but they did have those cheap shops like the Australian Reject Shops, but better, because they sold EVERYTHING, and everything was a quid each! I bought a good amount of food to tide me over, so I wouldn't be eating my cousin out of house and home (which sometimes I think he did think!), and that I'd have something to take with me to any festivals and/or pub crawls that I was intending to do.

So after a bit of a walk around, an ice cream, and buying some amazing comics that I hadn't seen before, and some movies, I decided to call it a day and head on home. 

Walking home I took some photos of the "street signs" around the area... And it's a bit harder to understand as there are no real street names, just names of the areas that you actually had a house in. It was weird... Like Nicholls Field, North Grove, Sadlers Mead... and up to 200 people could be living in each of these areas, not bigger than 5 acres of land... It's totally crazy! I don't know how 68 million people live on this island, close to the Arctic Circle (close enough!) and actually "LIKE" it!! I don't get it. And then they whine and whinge about it? I have told my cousins to move to Freo! They'd think it was paradise, and then I'd send them to the Gold Coast! They would probably think it's Disneyland! Lol. I am actually looking forward to my cousin and her kids coming over. It would make my life a bit more interesting!

I walked back home. 

I got home and put my feet up, had a smoke or two and then did something that I really wanted to do when I got here. And that was watch the football! It was great... just me and the tv... 

Couldn't ask for anything else. 

So that was this day. I'll be back to tell you more over the coming weeks

Get out there and travel!!!

CIAO!!!

Wazza's European Adventure

Hi! And thanks for coming back! :)

Today, I went to Audley Ends. A place that I went to over 30 years ago with my family. I went there with my mother Yvonne, my grandparents Jim and Phyllis, and my Aunt Joyce and her son (my cousin) Brett. When I went there for the first time I met my cousins that I hadn't seen in a few years. Sarah and Rachel came with their parents Aureen and Brian White, and we had a great time. 

Now that I have grown up (well some people may say that I haven't, and good on you!), I'm going to see this place again with very different eyes. I will actually experience this from a mature angle. 

I was looking forward to getting out of the house. It's a lovely house that Brian has let me stay in. But let's face it, Australia is a bit better when it comes to housing. Although my home town only has around 1.8 million people, it's much more spread out. There isn't terraced housing, which makes the landscape so dull and dreary. Hey! No offence to all those people who read the blog and live in terraced housing! You make do with what you got! I am just extremely glad that mum, nana and dada (mother, grandmother and grandfather) decided to go to Australia rather than the U.K. I would have turned out a very different person, and would have had a very VERY thick English accent! I do like the accent. But I love MY accent.

So we took off fairly early, as it was a bit of a drive. And in the UK, even though you may live "down the road" it can sometimes take an hour to do so!

This is just some of the grounds at Audley Ends. This photo above, is just one of the hundreds of photos that I have up on my Google Maps account. So if you do want to have a look, go to Google Maps, and enter Audley Ends, U.K. You'll see all the photos that I have put on here, on there, plus you'll see where it is.

Just look at that hedge! It's monstrous! On the left of this hedge is the car park, which always has 50 or so cars there every day. Audley Ends is not far from the village of Saffron Walden. 

"Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is 12 miles north of Bishop's Stortford, 18 miles south of Cambridge and 43 miles north of London."

So says Google. 

We were in Harlow, Essex. So it took us about an hour to get there.

Audley End House is a largely early 17th-century country house outside Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It was once a prodigy house, a palace in all but name and renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England.

From the official Audley Ends Website, I have taken this:

Audley End was one of the greatest houses of early 17th-century England. In about 1605–14 Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, took an earlier house created by his grandfather Lord Audley on the site of Walden Abbey, and rebuilt it on the scale of a royal palace. Robert Adam transformed this house for Sir John Griffin Griffin in the 1760s, while Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown remodelled the grounds, to create one of England's finest landscape gardens.

This was the first thing I remember all those years ago. I remember posing in front of this as a child of about 10 years old with my cousin, who was 4.

The gardens in this estate are amazing. They are taken care of very well, and they are just plain stunning.

As you turn around from the above photo, you get to see this view. 

Unfortunately, because of security, you aren't allowed to take photos of the inside of the Mansion. But that just makes you buy the pamphlets and books that they have on sale, and they aren't that cheap!

Well after walking around the grounds for a few hours, seeing all the wonderful architecture, and all the fantastic busts, paintings and other things that went on in the Audley Ends, we decided that we were really quite hungry!







What a name for an old fellow? Capability Brown? Apparently he was responsible for the making of Audley Ends if I'm correct. Funny old fellow. But he did know how to make a palace!









Brian suggested that there was a town nearby, which was Saffron Walden. Apparently (so I was told), it was where most of the spice, saffron, came to to be sold. I can understand that, as it is a lovely little village. If you ever want to see a typical old English village, then this is the place you want to see. The architecture here is amazing, the people are friendly and the food is wonderful

As you can see, the serenity of the village is amazing. There are houses with scaled roofs, thatched roofs, and beautiful green everywhere. There are signs outside most houses and buildings, telling you a tale or two about its heritage, and sometimes the house may have been used by a famous person or two.

The streets and alleyways are straight out of a novel or a book written about the same time as Hans Christian Anderson. Or even Chaucer. But Chaucer is actually near the eastern coast of England.

 The streets of this quaint village are beautiful. The buildings have been here for over a hundred years, and still are used as shops or places of lodging, and in some circumstances they are even homes.

 The street signs... I couldn't get over this one. This one had all the right things to put on a street sign, not like "Perth 3533 kms; Los Angeles 2434 kms" etc, etc. This one had the church, museum, toilets, car parks and bridges, and places on interest on it.

Just look at this road. It was just wide enough to put a lorry down it, but somehow, it was a two way street.

The Cross Keys Hotel - a real hotel, with rooms you could rent or stay in and the age of some of these buildings, were actually stated on flags and signs, just like the one below, called "The 1569", and obviously called that because of the year it was built. And YES, it was built in 1569!!

It was converted into a coffee and cake shop. And such good cakes too. The coffee wasn't bad either!

I couldn't get over the cuteness and quaintness of these buildings, being here for hundreds of years and looking this good. No doubt they have had some work done, but they looked amazing.

And they looked colourful too!

  Above and below are photos of the Saffron Walden Town Square. It had a lovely monument in the centre, and apparently there was meetings here for the townsfolk very often. As you can see from these photos, it was a pretty busy day, as it was turned into a shoppers car park the day we were there. This happened quite often as the town is very popular

Above, is the Saffron Walden Town Hall, which was also the Library

I had to stop on our wanderings to take a photo of this colourful building. It was three houses. Two under one roof (blue and red) with the yellow one sharing a common wall

Ahhh.. the King's Arms. One of the many pubs named the same name. It was Saffron Walden's version, but I am sure that this may be one of the older buildings in the town. I wanted to have a good pint there but the time was getting by.

The map of the town of Saffron Walden.

After the day went by, the weather was turning a bit nippy, so we decided to go get a bite to eat. We landed up going to a place called "The Beautiful Ugley Chequers", which was in a place called - you got it - UGLEY. We had a couple of sandwiches, ploughman style, with some meats, and some pickles, and had a another pint of another hugely warm, but rather tasty beer.

What a name for a place called Ugley. Smart arses everywhere! But it works!

Another fine example of "YE OLDE ENGLISH PUB". Staff were very nice and noticed that I was an Aussie. Poor things. They just wanted to be like me!

And here are some photos that I took of the grounds, which I have just managed to find. The bridge on the left was where I had a photograph taken of myself and my cousins over 30 years ago. I still remember it!

Well... Now that I was totally famished, I had to eat something. And an aim of mine was to eat some sort of fast food that I could obtain in Australia, that I could also get here. So it was... MACCA'S!!!

Okay, so I got stuck into some McDonalds. And it was the first time that I had fast food since, I think, Hong Kong? So as you can see, I had a Big Mac, and a new burger that I hadn't seen before called "The Big Tasty". And as you can see, it doesn't look that "tasty"...

 Look at the size difference!!! The Big Tasty is easily double the size of a Big Mac!!! But I'll let you in on a little secret...

It is worse than any McDonalds that I have EVER tasted! OMG! It was like eating cardboard with salad! Terrible. No taste. The beef was just tasteless... I couldn't be more unhappy, but I was so damned hungry I ate both!

So that's this entry into my adventure. Next entry - I go to the local shopping centre, as my laptop goes on the fritz!

Till next time! Cheers!

Catching up with the Family...

Sometimes, you wait to see friends and family. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes, it's years before you see them, and this is my case

I haven't seen some of my family (my mother's side) in just over 30 years. And it's been several years (14 years if you don't count Bali) that I have been overseas. So when these two facts come together in a jam packed European Tour,

Kelly!

there are definitely some surprises.

I first met my cousins when they came to Australia, or I went to the U.K.. I can't actually remember which one it was, but the last time I saw my second and third cousins (I'm staying with my cousin Brian in Harlow, Essex) was in 1985. That's over 31 years ago! And I was very excited to see them, their lives and their families.

So here I am, at Heathrow Airport, and I have a big smiling, the "I can't believe that he's here" face on (just like I had on!) and I saw here grow up in front of me. Same smile, same voice, just older, like I was. Big hugs, walk to the car, then the hectic drive from Heathrow to Harlow.

Lindsay!

The plan was surprise the rest of the family at a dinner the next night if I'm correct. And I think that this did happen. I am writing this in the past tense because it's been quite a while since I actually did something on this blog! The rest Sarah's immediate family came over her house for dinner. I had been communicating with her mum and her sister for the past few weeks, but never actually told them that I would be coming over.

Here I am in the backyard, with Sarah's boys (Ben and Louis), checking out their homegrown foods (tomatoes, greens and the like) when Sarah's mum and dad walk in. A surprise happened, and then her dad realised who

Young Benjamin and I pulling faces

I was. Another bunch of handshakes and hugs. Then her sister and her husband popped in, and the similarities started to flood back. Same faces, just we were all a bit older and wiser (well... with me, I'm not so sure I'm wiser...)

Having a tonne of memories flooding back, with a great home-cooked dinner, and stories of old that are new to you, was quite an experience. I honestly didn't think that I would see these people again, but if I did, it would have been with walking sticks, pushers, and maybe a wheel-chair or two.

Louis and Sarah! And me making faces at them!

After meeting Rachel (Sarah's older sister) and her hubby, and seeing their mum and dad after so long, I felt (and still do) very blessed. To see my cousins, grown up and doing well. It made my heart smile

That was the first two... The second two were a couple of weeks down the track.

Kelly and Lindsay were another two female cousins (7 in total, all girls, which is quite the opposite from the family in Australia, as we had 5 boys) that I enjoyed spending time with when I was over in 1985. Walking to their mum's house, I turned to Brian and asked if I had been here before. Unbeknown to him, he didn't know that I actually did come to the house of his sister June in 1985. I was walking up to the house, thinking "I remember that wall...? I think we nearly all fell off the damned thing when we were kids..." I was told a certain "no, I didn't bring you here...", which was true, but HE didn't bring me here, his mother did - and then I walked into June's place...

I couldn't turn this the right way up, but...
Emma, Kelly, Lindsay, me, Rachel
Sarah and Sally...
30 years ago

BAM! I recognized the place immediately. Then I saw a little girl who I could've mistaken for a younger Lindsay, but was actually Kelly and her husband's little daughter Connie, and her younger brother William was running around with her. Memories flooded back again. Lindsay, Kelly, my younger cousin Brett, all running around screaming, being nuisances to the older family members (well we WERE 10 years old or so!). I looked at Kelly and saw the little girl. Her husband actually lived in Mandurah (where I was staying before I left to go on my wild adventure)

So... after some interesting chit chat to find out what they are doing now, what they have been doing the LAST 30 YEARS, we had a light lunch, and I then had a sweet little Connie come up to me and say "your my Australian..." and then going up to her cousin Charlotte and saying "this is my Australian!". After a bit of a explanation, I then heard "oh Charlotte, he's your Australian too!!!"

It was wonderful to see them. All of them young and old. I still have a few other relatives to catch up with, and I am sure I will catch up with them over the next few weeks... or months. I have another 3 to catch up with later. 

Keiran and Nicola!

I did catch up with my cousin Steven and Deb, who both have 2 wonderful kids each. Steven and Gail have Keiran and Daniel, and Deb and Ian have Oliver and Georgia (funny story there, let me tell you!) So I caught up with Steven first when he came over with his youngest Daniel. Jeez, you could tell that Daniel was his! Good looking blokes! They invited me a bit earlier in the piece for a good look at some beer inside their cricket club, and a view of the rugby, in which their English Rugby Union team whitewashed us on our home turf in Australia. After a few pints and a good ribbing of sports, we retired and I came back with Brian (Steven and Deb's dad, where I was staying) to hit the old sack. 

Later on in the week, we went to Steven and Gail's to say hi, just before I had to head out to the Beat-Herder Festival in Sawley the next day. I got to meet Keiran and his lovely girlfriend, who both live in Belfast. Again, very like his dad, a big fine strapping lad. Loved a good joke and a good laugh.

Keiran, Gail, Steve, Nicola and Daniel

Ver' Lads!
Brian, Keiran, Steven, me and Daniel

I also went and met Deb and Ian, after 30 years, and I had grown up. The last time I saw them, they were just married I think. Now I met Oliver and Georgia. Good looks run in the family I tell ya! Oliver is a good looking lad, smart too, and his gorgeous younger sister Georgia, who, I found out to her description, is a very "high maintenance" girl, who loves what most young 21 (now 22 years old) like. But this is where it gets a bit awkward, and I am going to rib them on this whenever I can...

I get told that Oliver has a long time girlfriend... Called Georgia...

And then I get told that Georgia has a long time boyfriend called... Oliver...

Confusion reigns. A bit weird for me, but they seem pretty comfortable about it. I was recently talking to Deb and Brian, and they had to put a letter behind each of their names, or say "our Oliver" or "our Georgia" or something like that, which I cannot get my head around. Luckily I don't have any brothers and sisters... I don't know... In the throws of passion... screaming out your sibling's name??? How about if they are in the next room, like on holidays or something? And how about in emergency situations? When you have a partner, and their name gets yelled out, you kinda look around too, right? So in this case, you would get four heads turning around and looking at you!!! But all four of them are very good looking and doing very well for themselves... Smarty pants!

Now if you four are reading this - sorry! I'm an Aussie and I will poke you forever more! HA! But I did say you were smart!

So until my next blog... 

Cheers!

Waz