Fiona's Birthday

Here are some photos from my Birthday weekend and Easter. After a leisurely sleep-in on Good Friday and a chat with the folks back home, Shannon suprised me with a horse riding lesson in Richmond Park. Shannon was keen to join me, but unfortunately they said he was too heavy for the horses (all muscle of course!) so he had to watch from the sidelines. The weather was a bit drizzly, but it didn't matter and in fact it was quite nice, as the park was very quiet and peaceful. I rode a lovely big horse called 'Mrs T' who took very good care of me. My instructor taught me how to trot and rise in the saddle, and we had a lovely time trotting around Richmond Park, past the deer and through the meadows and woods.

Yes, the helmet is pretty cool, but apparently Madonna wore the same one when she went horse riding in Richmond Park!

My birthday present from my lovely husband...

My present from the Smiths was a night out to go and see Billy Elliot. It was just fantastic and made me want to put my tap shoes back on.

I worked on Easter Saturday, but it was pretty uneventful. On Easter Sunday we went for a walk through Wimbledon Common and made our way over to the Wimbledon Village for lunch. We didn't see any Wombles but we did see a couple of Easter Bunnies. The Common is just lovely, there's acres of woodland and walking tracks to explore, it's amazing to think it's all right there in the middle of West London

On Sunday evening, Shannon took me out for dinner to Le Pont de la Tour, which is a lovely french restaurant on the Thames near Tower Bridge. We had a lovely meal and a nice bottle of Burgundy. We stopped at the 'Anchor Tap' for a pint first, which is Shannon's local pub close to his work. They serve very good beer at bargain basement prices, which is a rare thing in the middle of London. Shannon reckons you can get 3 pints for under a fiver. The beer was very good indeed!

La Tour at night...

Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes! Now, only 10 sleeps to go......

6 weeks

Stockholm

Back in February, after getting homesick after our trip home, we decided to make the most of our return with a weekend trip to Stockholm. While we were there, we caught up with one of my best friends from Queensland, John Lock, and his girlfriend Steph.

Because we were departing early on the Saturday morning from Stansted, we decided to stop for a night at the airport hotel. The photo above shows the bar in the main lobby. They keep all the wine in this tower, and when someone wants a bottle, they send up these girls cartwheeling up via a series of ropes, pulleys and the like.

Our hotel room in Stockholm.

It was a cold and misty day so, as usual, we found a nice little place for a spot of lunch. This is Backfickan - "The Hip Pocket", a tiny little counter eatery attched to the opera house. They specialised in beautiful, traditional local dishes such as pickled herring, and Swedish meatballs.

It was obviously pretty cold.

The orange building on the right make a mean hot chocolate!

That evening, we met up with John and Steph in the Belgian restaurant below our hotel. It was a great night - really enjoyed catching up with them and hearing about their time in Stockholm.

We caught up with them again the next day and had the royal tour of Stockholm.

The band back together...

The Vassar, a massive 17th century warship that while looking extremely impressive, was actually pretty rubbish once you put it in the water. It sank a few minutes after it first launched.

5 weeks