This just in - Bedford Christmas pretty nice thanks

Merry Christmas! It's boxing day and as such we're eating leftovers and playing with our new toys :) Joe is playing his new game Red Alert 3 and having fun. I am eating candy and playing games on the computer. I've already stuck all my new Harry Potter stickers into my new Harry Potter sticker book :D and read The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Plan to next cook a nice meal with my new crock pot and recipe book. And maybe write some notes in my new notebook, while wearing my new thermals (sent by both Joe's parents and mine, great minds think alike!) and my new pink NZ tshirt (thanks Amanda :D) I like Christmas! Not that it's all about presents mind.

I cooked up a lovely feed yesterday, actually 3 of them - we got up to phone calls from Gail and Richard, and Alison and Kevin, around 8:30, then I cooked us delicious french toast (using eggnog instead of egg mix, yum!) with bacon and banana. After that was cleaned up, I cooked a yum roast pork with veges and sauces etc, yum yum :D

And then we indulged in baked vanilla and blackberry cheesecake. Oh so tasty. This is what Christmas is for, crazy delicious feasts and silly crackers and things :) Oh and being with loved ones and sharing the Christmas Spirit of course!

Joe and I are heading off for our Spanish New Year's on Sunday, equipped with a iPhrase ebook on my iPod - how great is technology these days? Very. Hmm what else have we been up to... Went to London on Christmas Eve and visited Harrods, checked out their toy department and christmas section which was pretty cool. Then headed to an Irish Pub and had bangers and mash sitting at a window overlooking Chinatown.


We were with a neat Aussie couple I met through Improv, Maddy and Jaime - very lovely and fun :) Now we have a couch to sleep on in Melbourne should we visit! They're heading home on New Years.

Anyways. We're getting our final travel plans sorted out, trying to book flights and trains around Europe, mainly Italy and France. Fingers crossed we don't come home with too much debt... Will write something up about Barcelona when we get back :) Love and cuddles!

Ireland concludes, now with 30% less detail!

Ahh I have left things far too long to remember the full details of what we got up to. But the rest of the trip included the following: A quite beautiful afternoon where we delivered Joe's Uncle John's ashes to a family plot on Beere Island, very touching and teary (see pics of Beere island to see what a lovely day it was and the view from the church); another delicious meal out in the only restaurant on Beere Island with a lovely waitress and flowing wine; an awesome night out in a pub where I got to jump up and do some Irish Jigs with the locals (so so SO much fun and quite similar to the Scottish country dancing I used to do - meant I was actually not the worst dancer in the group!)...

We drove back to Cork on the Sunday and Chris and Milly went back to London (work commitments and all). Joe and I got up the next day and checked out around 10, and then had the rest of the day until we had to get our flight and a paid up rental car, so we decided to go looking for something to do. And do you know, we found Blarney Castle! A great big old castle with the Blarney stone at the top, we went up and did the tour and kissed it of course, and then walked around the grounds which were just lovely, waterfalls and pretty trees all over the show. Then headed back home and got back to real life.

Which on this occasion was a couple of days of work followed by hanging with Jennie again! She came up to our place and we went through more of her junk (which is actually still exactly where she left it, I really should deal with that) and we headed to London for the Thames River festival. It was really good, lots of food and craft stalls, a big free running display, lovely weather, oo and I got a nifty hat (woolly with a peak) which I wore for the rest of the day even though the weather really didn't call for it :) See album 'triple J go to London' for the flattering pics of that outing.

Since then I have taken part in a couple of Improv shows, and will be coordinating a free show this Sunday with Impromptu Theatre which should be exciting! I've led a couple of workshops which is very exciting, and I hope I get to do it more. Need some more practice on planning lessons in advance, but I'm sure I can work on that later :)

WIT voted me most missed improvisor AND prodigious foreign correspondent which was awesome, cos I miss them heaps too, coming back in 5 months guys! I'm sure they'll manage until then :) I know I will! But mostly because we have other awesome things like Barcelona, Rome, Geneva, Pompeii and Paris to look forward to, not to mention New York and LA - we're going to try to get tickets for the Daily Show while we're in NY since they are free, you just have to get online at the right time. Fingers crossed!!!

Will write more later, less of a running commentary and more of a 'here's some things we've learned about Britain and the British' :)

Love Jen and Joe