Victoria House Oxford

Right...23 Days to go!! Not long now since i started counting at 385!!!
Only 10 actual days of my "real" work left to do then i'm out of here! I can't actually belive i'm going it somehow does not seem real!
I think the nerves are setting in and the waves of happiness and fear come and Go!!!!!
I never though for a minute i would leave the comfort of a perfectly good job, home and my family and friends to travel on my own ...

With time rapidly dwindling I went down to Banbury way this afternoon to visit my brother et famille before I leave, taking the opportunity to say goobye to two young nephews - one of whom was able to appreciate some of the implications of what I am doing, "But what if you get sick?" he asked. :-)

Back up to Stoke in the late evening. Last day of preparations tomorrow.

... the hotel? We had to ask Parri for a service break to use the bathroom and stock up on supplies! And we passed the Colloseum twice!)
- Me and Anna being pressured to have shooters in a bar because "we
need to beat the record and it is Contiki"! Newsflash, you idiot - to
beat the record you would have to spend 2300 euro, and people canīt even pay their ******n laundry bill!! Good luck with that!
- Dad crushes

Plain annoying / disappointing things ...

... could do but pass the time dozing, playing playstation and chatting with the other on the bus.

The ferry crossing was very choppy! Quite a few people got seasick unfortunately, but thankfully I wasnīt one of them.

As we drove back to London, we all played a game called "Secrets", where you write on a piece of paper any secret you have kept over the tour and want to get off your chest before ...

... to work, then during the day we kept losing broadband connection. With an over booked plane it was imperative I checked in as soon after 7.20pm as possible so as I could to preserve our precious seats. Eventually after fraught nerves but good assistance from son Stephen I got the job done.

Off to bed with some relief.

A week in London and what didn't we do!! Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the Tate. Oxford Street, the Gherkin, and saw Billy Elliot. Also saw Romeo and Juliette at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and stood with the "penny-stinkers" with our elbows on the stage. Brilliant!

When we were peckish or flagging we got ...

... we had communion with a common cup so we abstained, and then announcements, and after all of that a sermon. The music was very repetitive but done well with guitars and keyboard. The sermon was OK enough until he told us that he could stop a hurricane through prayer and had done so. We were impressed with the many young people in the congregation and the enthusiasm of the singing ...

My suitcases arrived yesterday morning. Apparently threatening the well-being of several airline managers has some form of influence. Both bags are damaged, although brand new before enclosing my clothes and a variety of England survival necessities. There was a letter acknowledging the significant downgrade enclosed in the bags so I will probably attempt to coerce a refund at some point. In any case, I have finally unpacked my supplies, and other than a ...

A little about Oxford... There is a continual push for the old colleges, such a Merton, to pretend they are in the age in which they were built. This is what formal hall feels like. Formal hall boasts better food at a later time, but to attend, one must dress smart and wear a student's robe. Oxford as a whole has some ceremonies that live up to this same concept. Last Sunday, I woke a 7h00 to attend Matriculation, where everyone dresses is sub fusc ...

... daily brain workout and is actually really helping to expand my vocabulary and improve my spelling doing the crosswords. I never really gave them the time of day before as they were too hard but slowly but surely by pounding away on them I'm getting better and better and being forced to learn how to spell words properly. They haven't quite implemented spell check into those yet. Needless to say were having some trouble filling our time at the house but now that we're all ...