What the hell am I doing and where am I?

Well, For the last month I have been living near Maidstone, Kent. Where the hell is that you might ask? It is an hour on national rail south east of London. Kent is the 'Garden of England'. It is pretty green and there is a lot of good old English country side to see.


















I live in a nurses residence at Maidstone Hospital with a woman Belinda (who lived in Aus for 20 years) she's very nice but older and has her own family etc. and another girl margaret who keeps to herself. The Maidstone Hospital is a 20 minute bus ride from town pretty much in the middle of no-where.

















I work in community health at Preston Hall Hosptial which is a further 30 mins walk away from where I live. It is a nice walk past some horses, fields and green. But I say walk because I have to walk there is no bus. So when the weather turns bad it will not be so great. It looks like an old castle I thought it was an old mental asylym but apparently it was a TB hospital.

















My job has been somewhat crazy. The only audiologist they have here is a crusty old guy who is about to retire and they have been practising audiology 70's style here with the equipment and testing methods. Slowly but surely I have been trying to shake things up here, and with the help of my new locum buddy Tina (who is super experinced and a real go getter) we are turning things around.

As for me it can be quite isolating here it is difficult to meet people my own age. I am meeting some people who speak Spanish for some conversation practise and I hope that goes well. However I miss all my friends back home, and the friends I do have here are either all the way in Northern, Scotland or in London.

I head to London most weekends, to visit some galleries, look around and meet up with some of the friends I have there who I would like to thank for looking out for me most especially to Angie and Danny who have been so lovely and accomodating and have really given me an ear to listen and valuable advice when needed.

So that is where I am right now, I have not heard from many of you in a while so keep me updated on all the news back home and yes I know the Crocodile Hunter died. People went a little crazy for it here as well but apparently nothing like back home.

Lots of love to all.

Sorry I have not fallen of the face of the earth

Well, I must give me apologies. I have not written for such a long time for reasons I don't really know why maybe: starting work, trying to settle down, being somewhat self absorbed, being busy, having fun, being stressed all the things that come with trying to find yourself a new life overseas.

Well about a month ago, I was still up in scotland and I went to Edinburgh so this is my blog post for what should have been ages ago.












Edinburgh
Well after inverness I headed south to edinburgh. I was staying in a hostel my first time in the UK and it was a bit pricey. Well I was there for the festival, which hikes things up a bit. Festival time is crazy in Edinburgh the population of the city doubles.





On my first day I hiked around with all my bags which have somewhat swollen by now, found the hostel and then headed out to check out the local street performers. I walked around some of the old part of town checking out the various crazy street performances some much better than others.








Checking out the street performers became a daily ritual for me some of them were fantastic but my favourite would have to be chicken man. Whose act involved firing rubber chickens out of a canon, topped of with tight rope walking in a chicken suit juggling knives and rubber chickens. Sounds a little wacky but I guess you had to be there.





That night I caught up with Beth one of Danny's housemates I had met in London. She is a lovely girl who was in town for the whole festival. So her and I saw many shows and went out for dinner and drinks a few nights. She was great company and had a huge festival knowledge. She was also able to get some free tickets so the bank was not broken. The shows I saw included.
- Hairdresser in the house: One man irish theatre piece (done by an ex-hairdresser to the stars now actor) with monologues to relate hair to life, all done whist cutting someone's hair on stage. It somewhat preceded to an audience question and answer session at one stage but Beth got the free haircut so that was cool.
- The Wilson Dickson Hour: Young Australian comedian show, done in entirely in character of Wilson Dixkson from Cripple Creek, Colarado U.S. Complete with his catalogue of country hits! Really Really laugh out loud funny.
- Jesus in Guantanamo: I had high expectations with a stand up routine about how if Jesus were here today he would be in Guantanamo, given he is a bearded religious matyr. Had some highlights but generally a little dissapointing and lacked some fluidity.
- Past Half Remembered: Now when we got the free tickets for this one, I was a bit worried a theatre piece set in Russian world war one and two based on a true storey. I thought it would be nothing but depressing. But it was AMAZING, great storey, well acted funny and somewhat musical moments where appropriate.
- One man starwars trilogy: Something needed to be seen to believe, one man acts out the parts, does all the voices and performs all the fight scenes from all 3 movies of the star wars trilogy al in under an hour. Intencely funny.

















I did take a short walking city tour and did see some of the sights of Edinburgh. I didn't visit the castle as I had been Scottish castled out at that stage. But it is a beautiful city with nearly every building in the old part of town being a now converted church. The new part of the town is very pretty too. I had a lovely time there and would love to head back.

Kilt sightings: ohh festival time so now up to like 10
Piper sightings: 4

But it was on to London where I spent 4 days at the fantastic home of Rob and Nina who were most accomodating. I spent my time there doing a little shopping and mostly catching up with all my lovely friends in London hello to all of you guys!!!!