Catching Up With Friends In The UK

Well, the last month has been amazing seeing different things around the whole of the United Kingdom... so much so that I'm dividing it up into a few separate blogs... the first of which is the one about people.  'People First' is a good motto, I think, so I'll stick with that...

After putting the shout out, I ended catching up with quite a few people (still a couple that I keep missing, but hopefully we'll get together when I'm back for a few days in December - anyway)... here are some of those trials and tribulations...

Emily - well, we had caught up and spent the week together in Ireland, but I was pretty much hanging out with her (and the family) when I wasn't gallivanting around...  Here is a picture of us when we were in Bath.  It's taken at the Roman Baths with the Abbey behind us..  Weather was beautiful that day...

I also got to hang with my bestie from the 66 Sheaveshill days... Adrian... we played a bit of scrabble - as usual, I completely humiliated Adrian... he had a tough time with that... here is an action shot of us playing...

He had some professional shots done and to make him feel better about the scrabble games... here is one of those shots... looking good, Adr...

Speaking of 66 Sheaveshill, I also caught up with Lisa for lunch... we hung out near Westminster and learned what each of us have been doing for the last ten years... where did that time go?

It almost looks like Lisa is wearing a little crown... too funny... in another transition... crowns... I was thinking when I went to Buckingham Palace and saw that the Queen was in residence that I have really grown up in the last ten years... Here are two photos.. One from ten years ago and one from a couple of weeks ago... apart from the hair giving it away, can you see some maturity and growth in there?

Peace & Love Forever, I say...

During my little road trip around the UK and up to Scotland... I also caught up with some former Harker Internationals... one of the most famous fake bachelorettes we ever had was Blanche... also known as Selina... we caught up in Swansea, Wales.  The weather wasn't the best, but the coffee on top of the tallest tower in town and catching up was well worth it... Here we are at the top of the tower with Swansea behind us...

From Wales I had made my way to Birmingham where I caught up with Clem... we just chilled with some pizza and talking about bad american telly... it was what we needed after a long day being a tourist for me, and a long day at work and then a night class for Clem...

After a slight delay I was also able to catch up with Elaine and meet Jack... We stayed up talking all hours of the morning (me talking for most of the night, what a shocker!) and headed out for morning tea the next day... Here I am with little Jack...

Lastly, I was able to catch up with Claudia... Emily and I headed to Bristol and while the plan was to get me absolutely off my nut (apparently the real word used to describe my supposed state is a curse word... so, off my nut will have to suffice) that didn't really happen.  We stayed out until almost 6am and thought that was it... until Claudia turned up at the hotel the next day a little after noon and she still hadn't gone to bed!!  I think someone spiked her drink... or maybe she was just suffering the ill effects of jetlag...  It was a great, albeit tiring, weekend... here are some of the best shots from the Bristol weekend...

They didn't know I took this one... I like it..

The three of us...

Love, love, love, Claudia's brown hair...

I REALLY LIKE this one of Em & Claudz. Claudia looks so tanned too...

As the evening progressed, I got cold... But luckily we had some scrubs..

Great, and late, times with the Claudzmeister...

So, that's it really... I've had a great time catching up with friends...  Friends are the family you choose... and that's definitely true...

Lastly though, he'll be jealous unless I put more photos of him... So, here's another one of Adrian and I.... I will also give him the shout out as the best host I had while staying in London... :)