Saturday, July 27, 2013

Home in Bristol

After living exactly in various hotels and serviced apartments for 12 months, we have finally settled into a more permanent house in Bristol.

Good location near many good schools, and not far from the office. Our neighbour is Chinese, and their two children are exactly Greg and Nic's ages.


It's a very old but recently refurbished detached house with 3 bedrooms. While there are only 2 pieces of furniture belonging to the landlord (bathroom sink cabinet and kitchen-top), he has made much noise about how it should be used.

On the other hand, it has a decent view from the kitchen, its own parking (a pain in this area) and boasts of some best schools around (which unfortunately, Greg couldn't get in).

And while the "junk" garden is full of rocks and uneven grass growth, it has managed to grow some interesting "weeds". One is a blackberry plant that has coiled itself onto a tree (initially, I thought it was a blackberry tree as blackberries were growing on it. Later, I discovered much blackberries growing in the wild but they are all climbers). And when the gardener did not turn up after a few weeks, a tomato plant had sprout up and grew small tomatoes!

Must be the warm weather. Bristol is having the best summer in many years.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Thornbury Castle

Boss Kate's 50th Birthday. Very generous, treated entire team to dinner and stay at Thornbury Castle in, of course, Thornbury, which is only a few miles outside Bristol


Fantastic weather. Gorgeous food and party. Room was exceptional. Greg and Nic refused to go to bed. But of course, who could resist having any less fun in a room in a castle?