After a bit of a sleep in, we ate our breakfast at the supposed number one restaurant in Vernazza – II Pirata della Cinque Terre, or “The Two Pirates”. Conveniently for us, it’s directly underneath our room, so it wasn’t terribly hard to find! Our breakfast consisted of some freshly made pastries, espresso, and some blood-orange juice, and though it was no Full English with HP, I certainly wasn’t complaining. We had read that the hosts – two Sicilian identical twin brothers – were quite entertaining, and they didn’t let us down, making us laugh a number of times whilst we dined.

The day’s weather wasn’t looking too promising, but we didn’t let that hold us back, as we wanted to cover the 1.5hr (or so) hike to Corniglia, the next town to the south. Only a few minutes in, and already having climbed up a decent chunk of steps, we were rewarded with amazing views back over Vernazza.

Unfortunately, the first 10 mintues of our hike were about all that we had without rain; from there on in, it drizzled the entire time, making the already difficult terrain quite challenging! Who’d have thought that rain would make smooth rocks slippery? Thankfully, no spills though, and after more steps carved into the side of a hill than I care to remember, we eventually made if safely to Corniglia. After a quick stroll around the town (and a quick cache!), we found a little restaurant and tucked into a pesto pizza for lunch. Mmmm…. oily goodness….

Our plans for the afternoon were to keep on walking down to the next town (Manarola), but it turns out that the rain had plans of it’s own: to fall, fall, and keep on falling. While we were wiping the pesto and cheese from our chins, the rain became almost torrential, to the point where the owners had to shut all the doors to the restaurant to stop the water from flooding in!

The moment we saw a break in the storm, we paid our bill and headed on our way. After about 20 minutes, we came across a friendly Swedish guy – who I can only presume was a chef. He shook his head and looked at us disspointingly, then said “closed. closed.”. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but his wife then clarified, saying “The trail is closed”. I was still confused – I mean, I don’t exactly speak Swedish – but Kristy managed to figure out that what the meant was: the trails had been closed (due to the weather).

Defeated, we turned around and followed the chef back towards Corniglia. We watched in awe as he proceeded to sell the same story to everyone that he came across; so much so that he amassed quite a gathering by the time we got to the train station! He should have seized the opportunity and whipped us all up a nice snack! But alas, we went without, and instead hopped the train back to Vernazza, to take a well earned rest in our room.

So now all we can do is sit and wait for the rain to clear, in the hopes that the trails will re-open and we can continue on our journey. But given that the path outside our building has become a rapidly flowing stream, I don’t really like our chances!

There’s absolutely no way that you couldn’t have heard about the cloud/s of volcanic ash which have forced the closure of much of the airspace in the UK and Europe. There’s an even lower probability that you’re pronouncing the name of the guilty volcano properly – “Eyjafjallajokull”. I’m going with, “EYE-ya-fah-HEE-ta-cool”, and chances are, I’m probably right. Well, actually – probably not.

Uncle Martyn called us on Sunday evening to check how the ash cloud had affected us, and I have to say – it really hasn’t! Since we had no plans for travel, life had basically been trolleying along as normal. We did see the digital displays on the M25 reading “Heathrow Airport Closed”, but that’s really about as close as it comes.

Sure, some of our friends like Todd, and Lea and Dean, are stuck overseas somewhere – but I hardly feel sorry for them; they’ve all finished up at their respective jobs and are on party patrol! In fact, given that travel insurance is probably now paying for their holidays, I’m actually a little envious!

All that changed today though, when Eyjafjallajokull delivered us a personal blow. One of our much loved bands – Powderfinger – were set to tour this week, and I have tickets to see them on both Wednesday AND Thursday nights. But since all the flights to the UK have been cancelled, they’re stuck in Brisbane, and have had to postpone their shows!

Denied!

The rescheduled shows are now set for June 4th and 5th – a Friday and a Saturday night. And, though I’m gutted not to be seeing them this week, a Friday and Saturday night concert actually works out much better for me anyway, as it means I only have to go one night after work, and I get to sleep in both mornings afterwards!

Ha! Take that, volcano!

I notice that to shake things up a bit, you’ve decided to come out this morning. I can’t help but wonder why you’ve done this, and would urge you to reconsider.

You see, we’ve become quite accustomed to not seeing you, and we have adjusted our lives accordingly. For example, we have all of our curtains and blinds wide open, to let in what little light is provided magically by the clouds, with no assistance from you thank-you-very-much. And then you come along this morning, all jolly and happy, and decide to make things extra bright! I know you think this is very helpful, but all it really did was illustrate just how dusty my keyboard was!

And if that wasn’t bad enough Mr Sun, take a look at what you did to our coffee machine – Miss Sylvia:

Sure, you may think that all this extra light is very helpful – perhaps you were also trying to ensure I got my daily dose of Vitamin D whilst making espresso! But I feel as though your radiating glow is also mocking my cleanliness, by highlighting the calcification on the surfaces of the machine (from the unbeatable water that we’re lucky to enjoy here in London). Seemingly, you also fail to appreciate is just how difficult it is to see if the “not ready” light is on or off, when every surface of the machine is shining brighter than Doogie Howser in first grade! How I am supposed to know if I should start frothing up some microfoam for my latte art?

So, Mr Sun, if you could kindly shove off back to Australia, where the extra light and heat is so desperately needed; we would like to go back to living our normal, dark, cold and sheltered lives.

Kind regards,
Gerrod and Kristy.

PS: Please no Mr Sun, I was only kidding! Come baaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccckkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!

Definitely the biggest problem of all the snow is all the ice that forms afterwards. And, since temperatures have regularly been below zero, the ice has taken an age to melt. Thankfully, neither of us have fallen victim to it yet, but I’ve certainly seen people who have – and it doesn’t look like too much fun!

This is what the platform at Gunnersbury station looked like on Friday morning.

And here’s where our car is parked on the street. The ice on the footpath was about a centimetre thick, which made it pretty tricky getting in and out of the car doors! On the upside, it was a bit warmer on Sunday (somewhere around two degrees) so the ice finally started to subside a bit. Plus, all the build-up on the car meant I got to put my ice-scraping skills to good use!

We took Gazpacho for a spin on Saturday because we were out of groceries (and we weren’t the only ones with that idea; Tescos was rammed). That’s the first time I’ve ever driven on ice, and I’ve gotta say, I don’t like it. It’s somewhat discomforting when you spin the steering wheel but the car doesn’t actually start turning. Thank goodness the brakes still worked!

After a very early start yesterday morning (4 AM Düsseldorf time, or 3 AM London time) we managed to make it to the airport for our 7:10 AM flight. Thankfully, the flight made it back to London with only about a 1/2hr delay.

The snow continues to wreak havoc here though – lots of flights cancelled, public transport is a nightmare, and even the high-speed rail service is suffering. I heard this morning that the Eurostar has a 40,000 passenger backlog to process!

Fingers crossed things clear up before our flight to Aberdeen on Thursday afternoon!

And I mean, hot. Like summer in Australia type of hot. Today it hit 32 degrees. 32! Now, I know what all you Australian’s are thinking – 32 degrees isn’t really that hot; and I agree, it’s actually really nice sitting outside in the shade! But London just isn’t equipped to cope with temperatures like these.

I’m lucky enough to have air-conditioning in my building at work – lots of people don’t though, and boy am I feeling sorry for them this week! Last week our office a/c broke down, and it rapidly hit 29 degrees inside. And, since all the windows are locked as a matter of policy, there’s also no air movement, which makes it hard to concentrate, but easy to fall asleep!

Thankfully, the a/c is back on this week, and at the moment it’s cranked up to it’s maximum. This has somehow caused it to leak water, and since we’re on the top floor, it’s been dripping through the roof. One of the business analysts that I work with had a leak above her desk that was so bad, that it destroyed one of her monitors. And those bad boys aren’t cheap (think £1,000+)!

On the upside, it’s been absolutely gorgeous outside these last few days, with nothing but beautiful blue, sunny skies to be seen. Perfect sunglasses weather! And, since we’re in daylight savings, it stays light until around 9:45 PM! All this beautiful summer is totally making me forget about the miserable winter!

Not content with a whole week of skiing, we somehow managed to bring the snow with us back to London. It started falling – lightly at first, and then getting heavier – around 6 PM last night. By around 8 PM, there was quite a decent coating on the ground, which looked rather atmospheric under the eerie yellow street lights.

Seemingly it must have snowed almost continuously overnight, as by the morning, everything was well covered. We even had to cancel our barbeque breakfast on the patio!

London is not in the least bit equipped to deal with such a downfall; all the airports were closed, and all public transport (save for the underground lines that are entirely underground) was completely suspended.

Our work is well equipped to deal with such a scenario – I simply stayed at home and dialed in, instead. Now that’s all well and good, except that the other members of our household got to have a play for snow-day!

To top it all off, apparently there’s even more snow to come tomorrow and Wednesday!

More photos online in the Snowy London album.

For some reason I woke up early on Sunday, so I came upstairs and was playing a bit of Dead Space. Shelley came down not long after me, so we sat on the couch and hosed some aliens together.

Julian was the next one to wake up, and he walked over to the little window out on to the side yard, and said, “did you guys notice that it snowed overnight?”.

Shelley, clearly afraid that saying the word “snow” would immediately start it melting, LEAPT up from the couch and kind-of toe danced her way over to the window, absolutely shaking with excitement. “Where? Where? Where?!” she demanded.

Now, the part that I don’t really understand is, why she chose to go to the tiny window with a fairly non-view, instead of just opening the curtains out on to the backyard.

As you can see, our dusting of snow is nothing compared to what Racey and Wes got in Scotland, but it was still a novelty to wake up to, even if it did need to be pointed out to me.

I have three weather widgets on my dashboard – one for London (obviously), one for Brisbane, and one for Fort Lauderdale. The London one is good for telling me how many layers to apply before leaving the house; the Brisbane and Fort Lauderdale ones are for telling me how many layers everyone else won’t be applying before leaving the house.

I also like comparing them to work out which would be the best place for enjoying the weather. I’m not sure that London has ever won in this category.

Fort Lauderdale is today’s easy winner!

Do you know where your children are?

Well, if I was a kid, I’d want to be playing outdoors, given that it’s still light outside! (This is the view out of our bedroom window.) And, the sun was well risen at 6:15AM when I woke up this morning – which means we’re getting over 15 hours of daylight at the moment! I love daylight savings!

(Note: rising at 6:15AM is only to get to the gym when it opens at 6:30AM. As if I’d be doing that voluntarily! Who do you think I am – Karl?)