Hi all. Once again it’s been a while since I have added anything to our Blog so it’s about time that I added an update.

The English summer hasn’t cracked up to much as you may have seen on the international news! The worst thing is that lately it’s been quite nice during the week but rubbish for the weekend and we’ve got a few things planned that we really need nice weather for. Everyone here seems to be trying to convince themselves that autumn will be nice but I think it’s just wishful thinking. Anyway enough about the weather, I’ll get onto more interesting things.

As Peter has already mentioned we had a whirlwind trip to NZ back in July. It really was a fantastic time. It was great to see so many friends and family although it was not nearly long enough to see everyone or to spend enough quality time with anyone. The wedding was beautiful and seemed to go off without a hitch – except for the Bride being ill the week before the wedding and the bridesmaids having nightmares about falling over in front of everyone on the stairs leading up to where the service was held at the regent theatre. So, that’s the Pfahlert girls now married off and I think that dad is relieved to be as over weddings as he can be with a wife who makes wedding dresses!

Since we’ve been back from NZ we have had a reasonably busy time with some of Pete’s family visiting (which Pete has already posted about) and a weekend trip to Edinburgh.

All in all we had a great time in Edinburgh. We’d been looking forward to it all year as we had tickets booked to the Edinburgh tattoo before we left NZ in February. The tattoo was on Friday night and we had a mission on our hands to get from Newcastle to Edinburgh, pitch out tent, collect our tickets and be seated at the tattoo for 9.00pm. I think that subconsciously Pete and I would like to be on the Amazing Race and go to great lengths to make traveling as stressful as possible. Anyway, as was predictable we ran out of time and ended up Pitching our tent on a hill in strong winds after the tattoo at about midnight!

The tattoo was fantastic. Neither of us really knew what to expect and I wouldn’t necessarily say that bagpipes and marching bands were usually our first choice of entertainment but that aside it was an incredible show. The pipes and drums were first class and there were loads of interesting additions such as kids doing crazy stunts on motorbikes and dancers doing the limbo alongside a Caribbean military marching band. It was sad that it was all over so fast. So sad in fact that we went back the next night to see the fireworks over the castle which are reserved for the Saturday night performances.

Picture 1: Edinburgh Tattoo.

Picture 2: Fireworks over Edinburgh Castle.

On Saturday, after sorting out where our tent was actually supposed to go we went into Edinburgh city to explore. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a lovely picnic lunch in the Princes street gardens, just below Edinburgh castle. We then spent the afternoon exploring Edinburgh castle. I was expecting it to be just one or two buildings but it was in fact closer to a small village. We purchased an audio tour (which I would recommend) and took our time touring the buildings and various sites. It certainly was a fascinating place with a long and checkered history. I left wanting to learn more about the Scottish & English monarchies, which hopefully I’ll do someday. In the evening we ended up at a great Mexican restaurant after searching for a traditional Scottish meal! The place was in a bit of a muddle and as it turned out they had only opened two days earlier. The food however was fantastic and it was reasonably priced. So if you’re ever in Edinburgh and feeling like Mexican – then Tex Mex is the place to go!

Picture 3: Edinburgh castle from Princes Street garden

Picture 4: Pete taking a rest at Edinburgh Castle and listening to the audio guide.

Picture 5: Edinburgh Castle from inside the fortress. I loved how the buildings were perched on the rocks.

On Sunday it was unfortunately terribly wet. Nevertheless we went out to the coast from Edinburgh to Leith where the last Royal Yacht, Britannia is mored for public viewing. Leith won the bid to make a home for the yacht following its decommissioning in 1997. It was fascinating to go on board and tour the boat, again by audio guide. There were lots of photographs on board and fascinating naval mementos including a button off of Lord Nelson’s coat. Pete’s grandfather served on the Royal yacht in the 1950′s when he was with the Royal Marines so it was particularly interesting to see where he had lived and worked.

So that brings us to the end of our weekend in Edinburgh. We will be going back in September though, all dressed in black for a rugby world cup match between the All Blacks and Scotland at Murrayfield Stadium. Bring it on!!!

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It’s been a little while since our last post so you might be wondering what we’ve been up to.

Well, we’ve actually been up to quite a bit.

We were privileged enough to have my (Pete’s) parents and little brother stay for the last two weekends. The first weekend we didn’t really do that much, just took them to our church and wandered around Tynemouth and showed them the sights.

During the week we attended the Newcastle FC vs Celtic “friendly”.

Glasgow has a pretty bad ‘rep’ in these parts (murder capital of Europe is one bandied around) so we should’t have been surprised to see some scuffles outside the stadium. However when we were doing some filming before going in (you may see that eventually (I have a newfound respect for tv presenters)) a fight occured right in front of Megan. Being the intrepid reporter she is, she tried to film it, but it didn’t work out. Next time Meg!

All up though it was a really amazing experience. It may be the only Newcastle game we go to, so we were certainly making the most of it. I think the result was 4-1 to Newcastle in case anyone is interested.

We knew we were in for a busy weekend with my (increasingly less) little brother’s birthday on Saturday, the Sunderland International Air Show and Newcastle City, Metrocentre and Angel of the North on Sunday.

The Air Show was superb. So many planes, so much carbon emissions.

Funnily enough, it started out with a display which had nothing to with planes. One of the UK Navy’s amphibious units conducted a simulated landing on the local beach.

For someone who had played many hours of the Battlefield series and of course a number of the other WWII shooters, this was especially cool to see the hardware in real life.

The next notable flight was that of the WWI biplanes with the ‘Wing Walkers’. They were pretty cool, but not exactly show stoppers.

At this point, I think the organisers made a big mistake. The next plane on the program (only half an hour into a five hour program) was the Eurofighter Typhoon (not Tycoon as Megan insists on calling it).

This was absolutely astounding. The coolest thing I have ever seen (maybe). I sat there with my mouth open for the entire performance.

The problem was, that after that, nothing else seemed even remotely up to that standard. They should have done this last. Even the two F-16′s from Holland and Belgium didn’t even seem that cool in comparison.

However even though they didn’t get near the Typhoon, there were some other cool performances such as;

The helicopters and…

The acrobatic team.

On Sunday we went into town and visited the Sunday Newcastle market, saw the Millenium Bridge go up, went to the Metrocentre and took the family to the Angel of The North. Megan took another photo. Nice job. Now I just need to photoshop those people out and it would look super-cool.

This weekend we head up to Edinburgh for the tattoo and a bit of sightseeing. Should be uber-fun.

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