Mick & Leisa

I would LOVE to know how many fireworks were set off in London this weekend. I know that I heard about 5 million go off, and that’s just in the vicinity of our flat. Seriously - almost every darkened hour this weekend was rife with explosions. It gave us some idea of what it must be like to live in a warzone… without the fear, of course.

Last night was Guy Fawkes night. They take it very seriously over here. Well. They take it very seriously as an excuse to blow stuff up. Somehow, until last week, both Mick and I had it in our heads that Guy Fawkes was an American guy the whole Gundpowder Plot was to do with American politics…. how wrong were we! I think it’s safe to say that after this weekend we won’t be making that mistake again!

They do also take Halloween very seriously over here. We even had trick or treaters turn up to the door. Well one. Then we skived off down to the pub for dinner to escape them as we were completely unprepared and had nothing to give them. Well. except for money, but Mick wasn’t about to part with his spare change

Another thing that they take very seriously over here that we don’t, so much, at home is the red poppies for Remembrance Day. Now, in Australia, you tend to start remembering once you get off the bus/train on the way to work and all the kiddies are about selling poppies. Then - hopefully - you’ll remember to remember at 11am. It’s not that we don’t take it seriously, it’s just not a big thing. Now, it’s not even the 11th yet, but people have been wearing their poppies for a couple of weeks already. (They’re not very good replicas of poppies though, as I had to ask someone what the red things were that people were wearing and why they were wearing them… if they looked more like poppies I could have worked it out for myself I think!). Newreaders on the BBC, people in the street - poppies everywhere. I wonder what happens on the actual day…. (will keep you posted, but I think it’s a fair bet we’ll remember to remember this year!)

In other news, the boiler that powers the radiators in our house died on Saturday afternoon so we’ve been living in an ice house for the weekend. It’s seriously turned quite cold here now, and an average low is about 2 or 3 degrees. It makes you want some heating. Fortunately Mick has sorted out a plumber for us who will be coming in to install a new boiler tomorrow morning. Thank goodness. I hate being cold. (Although, it’s not really that bad… I’m just moaning).

Mick left for Italy this morning. I’ve set up his mobile so that he can email photos direct from his phone to the Flickr website, so hopefully he’ll remember/be bothered to do that in the next couple of days. Apparently it’s even colder in Italy than it is in London at the moment (as they’re half way up a mountain), so he’s packed his hat and gloves and scarf and some warm coats. I’m not sure how much work they’re going to get done over there but he should have fun Stay tuned for the next Mick’s News to hear all about it. (Did anyone manage to get that working? It works for me…)

OK. Time to do some work now. More updates as they come to hand.