England 2010 – January

15 – 31 January Oxford

Good news in that we found out we had been successful at the interview and they were happy for us to have our two days work experience at the Oxford site!  Hurrah!

Having spoken to the Oxford managers, Malcolm and Alison we arranged to work a Friday and Saturday as they are traditionally the busier days.

Well, we loved it!  The two days involved cleaning, plumbing and gardening, along with booking customers in, pitching them on site and taking queries.

On Saturday evening we went round Malcolm & Alison’s, along with Barry and Wendy the Assistant Wardens to have a catch up.  As previously, we had a really good night and only hope everyone we go on to work with are as lovely and genuine.

Within these two weeks we also travelled to Taunton to get some repairs done on one of our power monitors (when we got there it was working again….) and to buy ourselves a new TV – we’ve graduated from an 11” to a 16” and it has already proved a success as we were able to watch Andy Murray (sadly lose) play the Australian Open final.

This time we were organised and had arranged to meet up with friends who have moved back to Somerset, Sarah and Paddy.  They kindly picked us up and we went to a little village Pitminster.  They both looked fantastic (amazing what a change of lifestyle achieves!) and regaled us with stories of their angry bees amongst other things!

Towards the end of January we were making plans on where to go throughout February while we’re waiting to go on the Induction Course – our last hurdle before getting a ‘posting’ with the Club.

We then found out that Hereford were asking for volunteers to help get their site ready for opening in March.  When Dean called we were advised most of the work would be clearing up after all the trees on the 26 acre site had been lopped.  They’ve also had a complete refurbishment of their sanitary block (the showers are amazing!) with a new shop and laundry facilities.

Having spoken to Bill we arranged to come on the Thursday 4^th to help in any way we could.

1^st – 14 January Oxford

Since we’ve been at Oxford we’ve been pretty much snowed in!  We walked into Iffley Village along the river on a very frosty morning, and were lucky enough to see two foxes.  Once came running out of a family home, only to run back in and then we saw two of them wandering around a field of sheep.

We walked around Christ Church on the morning of the first snow falls, watching three deer and some cows in the grounds.  The views we were greeted with were spectacular as nobody had been about so it was virgin snow.

Last Sunday we went to friends for lunch.  Some guests had to cancel but as we could walk there we were fine and lovely Frank gave us a lift home in the evening.  It was a great day and the food was excellent – Emma you’re a star!

We’ve now had our interview for the company we applied to work for and we think it went well; we are just waiting to hear from them now.  The joint interview was not a problem and we both think it was a success – we can only be honest and true so…

Once the interview was over we bussed into Oxford and went to see the Sherlock Holmes film, followed by something to eat at All Bar One.  They make fantastic Gin & Tonics there!