Yes... hasn't exactly been weekly, but here it is ;)
Things have been swell in England over the past few weeks. Things have settled in nicely at work and all is well. My clinic is very friendly and pretty cruisey - after hours has been once a week and I've had the past two weekends on call. They've been reasonably quiet with a few interesting cases but otherwise ample time hiding away in my little penthouse at the top of the clinic.
Wisbech, on the other hand, is all go. There are at least three sirens race by the apartment block each night, with plenty more loitering going on around the place. There was a police visit to the block last week as a result of some kind of hooligan banging on cars and yelling at midnight, but by far the best was my internet cafe experience. I had to print off some paperwork so I reluctantly visited the internet cafe just down the road which also happens to be in the middle of 'little Eastern Europe'. I was doing my thing on the computer when all of a sudden there seemed to be a drug deal negotiated to my immediate left. The shop was fairly narrow and unfortunately I was on the opposite side of the deal to the door, so I was pretty well stuck. Choosing to stay out of the discussion (I didn't feel they required my business skills) I just continued on doing what I was doing, albeit a little on edge. Things started getting heated in a hurry when there was a disagreement about the price, and I quickly became a lot more on edge and was starting to plan an exit strategy. When the raised voices and pushing started I was frozen looking at my screen but then realised that everyone else in the immediate vicinity were just casually continuing their web-surfing. Evidently public negotiations are fair game in Wisbech, even when the comments like 'I've got my cousins with me' start arising. I don't think I'll be visiting the internet cafe too much more though - not that I'd need to, you could pretty much just hang around our apartment block and get a contact high at any given hour!
We made it out to Sandringham (the Queen's winter retreat) yesterday for some lunch and a look around. It was a really nice area (obviously) and had some really nice surrounding forest. Unfortunately the weather was a little chilly but it was still worthwhile. We headed up to Wells-Next-The-Sea (yes, that's the town name!) for a look at the quay there - there's quite a bit of celebration around at the moment for the Queen's diamond jubilee so the mood is fairly jovial and the decorations are around everywhere.
Aside from that, things have been reasonably quiet day-to-day. Work has included some interesting stuff and some new stuff as well. I got a bait down to a local cricket team's training so I might check that out in the next few weeks. I've got about 4-5 more weeks at Dereham before a one week trip to Holland. Then it's back on the job hunt for a three week block before a two week jaunt through Croatia. Very exciting!
I think work will be pretty solid then until coming back to Australia in mid October so until then it'll be a case of checking out local sights wherever we end up - with everything being so close there's no shortage really of things to see and do, it's just a case of the weather being nice... kind of the opposite to Australia really! Hopefully we'll manage a trip to the Norfolk broads in the next couple of weekends which is a big open area of man made waterways that you just cruise around in between pubs/different areas on little boats for a day or so - everyone highly recommends it so should be good.
I'm back to terrorising neighbours with a new guitar - courtesy of my peeps at Don Crosby Vets. I will post some photos of the beautiful Laura sometime. I actually hadn't already named it, Laura just came to me so I'll run with it ;)
Mixed news from home - WAC sounds like they've started with a bang but Gorillas, what's going on boys?! Maybe now you've Harro back things will pick up, although I do attribute him sole responsibility for not winning last year's flag so hopefully he's picked up some sweet ice hockey or NFL moves in his travels.
For now it's off for lunch - another rainy day in Wisbech so I'll probably head all the way to the kitchen ;)
I'll be back!
