I wouldn't be smiling if my leg was missing!

Broken Snowman2
Originally uploaded by meljenglish.

I took this shot on my walk today around Wimbledon Common. A little eerie don't you think? How on earth would that get there?

Ssshh ooh ooh sshhh aaahh

I spent the day in Cambridge yesterday for work and these shots were taken as you walk out from the train station. I have not seen so many bicycles in one spot in my life. Instead of a carpark full of cars, Cambridge has two large bicycle parks.

Cycling is really big over here (and yes, even in this weather). In our Co. alone our staff cycle over 74,000km per year to and from work. Just a bit of trivia I picked up along the way.

You've seen one roof

I know, I know. Yet another roofshop from the team at Paul and Mel. But I was running around the house this morning and saw this out the window.

Also, it was a chance for me to have a play with Photoshop Elements to edit photos. This is a very average job, but I will show you another verson of the same photo once I know what I am doing.I think it would make an interesting comparison.

Easy like Sunday ...

... afternoon.

Now this is my kind of way to spend a Sunday afternoon. SG, MD and Paul and I spent a long lazy Sunday afternoon at a Gastro-pub Wimbledon Village called Firestables. We've been meaning to go there for months. Today ... we bit the bullet and finally went. We were certainly not disappointed. We waited almost an hour for a table, but that's okay as there were places to stand/sit and drink. The food was very nice, I ordered the roast without the roast. Those who know me know that I don't eat red meat ... but love my veggies, so I ordered the roast beef without the beef. It came with some very scrumptious roast potatoes, carrots, parsnip and ... yorkshire pudding. YUM!

As you can see from the photos, dessert was a chocolate torte with espresso icecream.

No dinner for this little pisgsy!

Long Johns at the ready

The news of the moment - besides the poor whale that got stuck in the Thames - is that Russia has been experiencing temperatures around the -35c mark. And that whether is moving in the direction of the UK. Brrrrrr. Spare I thought for us all if we get the full force of it here.

Today, though, is a great day. Cold, but sunny. Yesterday was the same.

All in all, there has been very little to complaing about this English winter. It has been cold, but miserable days have been the exception rather than the rule. Melbourne has certainly dished out worse winters.

Still, I am looking very much forward to the odd approaching 40c day in Melbourne when we get there in Feb.

Not much other news to report - it is really steady as she goes in preparation for the home trip. It is out for lunch today in Wimbledon Village with M & S and then back into the working week.

What's in a name?

I don't know if I ever said this before, but have you noticed that the name for this blog is just slightly different than the URL (or web address, for the latter-day-luddites)?

After all, we could not call the site paulandmelsuk.blogspot.com.

Now why didn't I think of that?

Remember Project: Centurion? With the goal of getting Paul and Mel'sUK up to 100 hits a day? Well, the good news s that we get double the hits we used to. Huzzah! The bad news is that I am still about 80% away from the lofty goals set by Project: Centurion.

'Why did you fail, Paul?'. Well, in the tradition of The Curiosty Show's Deane I say, 'I'm glad you asked'.

If I have said it before I will say it again: Gumption, gumption, gumption. Witness the 2006 Australian Blog Awards. Listed as nominees are in the Best Overseas Australian Blog category are Spirit fingers, Maytel (Cambodia), The Road to Surfdom, Whitebait in the city, Two Minutes Happiness, The Sun Shines & The Igloo Melts, Caseyporn, Down and Out in Saigon, Alien Ted, Boring Like A Drill, Jungle Jamie, Yatima, Courting Disaster, What’s new, Pussycat?, Antipixel, Simonworld, Staypuff.net and, leonthelion. Where is Paul and Mel's UK? Nowhere to be seen. Why? I did not submit. Why? I admit, my research was not up to scratch: I should have known about it. Some of these blogs are fantastic, a couple are a bit average. Others occupy the middle-ground. Damn-it, Middle Ground is our middle name! Or should that be, our second and third names ...

Anyway, best of luck to the participants. We are all joined by one thing - being away from home.australia, uk, england, blog, competition, melbourne, london, boyfriend, girlfriend, paul, mel, travel, visa, passport, excursion, gumption

Rebel with a cause

Mel thinks I have a James Dean look in this photo, so I did not get much of a say in the title ...

This is me on the way home from our NYE dinner.

We went to a fairly well-to-do Italian place in Putney. The food was good. The service was good. The bill was horrendous.

Oh, I never did like James Dean. But I had a good night. 

Better late than never

Where the hell did this photo go?

MP comes all the way over, comes out for bevies ... gets in a pretty reasonable photo with us and I go and bury the photo in a pile of megabytes.

Sorry about that, M.

Suffice to say that it was great to see M when he was here last and we look forward to the next soccer World Cup. Not for what I find to be a very slow game, but for your next visit, buddy boy. 

I'll just have the mash thanks

Some gags are so obvious, so pure, that they don't need any embelishment.

But that would not be my way at all.

I am often intrigued by the English's use of their - and our - language and names. The suburb Cockfosters is just one example.

Witness, stage left, meatballs and potatoes.

By the way, I wanted to submit this to Rove Live's 'What The?' segment, but they only allow snail mail submissions (what year is this?).

If you should submit this entry and win, be sure to put me in for my cut. 

It's just a walk in the park

I'm trying my hand at keeping my photos on a site called Flickr. So yesterday I thought I would make a photo diary of my day, upload the pics to Flickr and then try and provide you with a link to it on here ... let's see if it works.

This weekend started off like most. Pretty quiet. I slept in on Saturday morning. Then got my cooking show fix by watching a bit of Saturday's Kitchen on tv, which gave me loads of inspiration for some fabulous meals and then I thought I'd get my butt off the couch and go for a nice long walk. I've started back at the gym and had only been twice this week so thought a long walk would almost make up for that. Despite the fact that it was only 3 degrees outside, I donned my sneakers, sweats, big warm puffy jacket, i-pod and camera and high-tailed it out of the house.

I took these photos along the way click here to let you see what I see. I ended up walking for around three hours around Southfields, Wimbledon Park and Wimbledon Village and, well ... the photos and the comments kind of speak for themselves. Enjoy.

I turn my back for just one minute

On many occasions, many moons ago, MB and I would be out at The Geebung and Captain Spalding and the crew would play Dead or Alive's You Spin Me round Like a Record. We would sing with great voice and bad pitch. The singer of that group was Pete Burns. That's him on the left. That is also him on the right, as he appears in the current series of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. And if you think you are freaked out now, why don't you check out their site.

What the hell happened? I don't think he is a transexual because he hasn't had implants so I imagine he still has his bits.

I am not sure he is a transvestite because he still calls himself Pete (as opposed to Peta, or Joan for that matter). On his website he is readily identifiable as men.

So what the hell do we label Pete Burns as?

11-02-06

Yay. I might be jumping the gun here, but it looks like our return flight will leave here on Feb 11 for a three week stay in Oz.

More details to follow.

Yay.