Check out the tune I’m currently using as my mobile phone ringtone.. Anyone else remember this classic cartoon from many years ago?

Last night Olivia and I went to the movies. This may not seem like a big deal, but in the nearly two and a half years since we’ve been over here we’ve only done this a couple of times – and been underwhelmed by the old, crappy, small screened jokes that seem to pass as cinemas here.. As such most of our viewing has been of the “DVD and TV shows downloaded off the internet (by others of course)” variety… Until now…

Now that we have a car – the cinematic world is our oyster. A short half hour drive brought us to the unfortunatly named town of Staines. Staines is pretty dead of a night time (even a Saturday night) – but it does have at least two very redeeming features. An EXCELLENT Korean restaurant – what a find… and a multi-screen cinema complex. Yes, these are things we would have taken for granted at home – but here in the UK you need to seek certain things out.

We saw “The Golden Compass” which I gather hasn’t made it to Australia yet. Well worth it – lots of fun. Massive screen. Big and booming sound. Not crowded in the least. All good.

Thank heavens for simple pleasures – I think we’re onto something here… All I need now if for them to screen the new cut of Blade Runner.

We have bought a car!

After a bit over two years of being almost totally reliant on public transport (you’d be proud of us Stu), we’ve taken the plunge and acquired a set of wheels. A co-worker of mine is (sadly) being repatriated back to Japan, and he needed to offload his wife’s car – we sensed an opportunity for mutual benefit and thus a deal was struck. Olivia and I are now the proud owners of a 2003 Volkswagen Polo – a green one, and a manual to boot – this last bit is of interest given that I’ve not regularly driven a manual since I got my licence back in 1992. Scary.

Armed with my other new acquisition – a sat nav device – (yes, we’ve lived here for over two years, but given that I catch the train everywhere do you think I have a CLUE about any of the roads here? ) – my first drive was home from the office on Friday night. Not having driven a car (let alone a manual) for so long there were a few basics I’d fogotten.. Firstly, in the carpark at work, I kept stalling… but why? Aah, the clutch.. Then when I got onto the road I had a look around and something wasn’t right.. aah, should have adjusted those mirrors before I started the car.. Even with the satnav, I managed to miss the left turn at Albequerque a couple of times.. 45 traumatising minutes later I made it home in one piece.

Onto Saturday – we have a car for the first time in the UK – where’s the first place we want to go? ….. the supermarket of course.. After two years plus of buying only what we could carry from the local supermarket, this was our chance to stock up a bit.. There’s only one supermarket within walking distance of our house. It’s expensive, and it’s range is a bit rubbish. So it was a delight to finally be free of the local Waitrose and head over to the nearest big Sainsburys… The satnav didn’t start well, asking me to turn right at an intersection where no right turn was allowed. Common sense prevailed and I didn’t try to make the right turn and went left (my only choice). The satnav punished me by guiding us to this supermarket via Bendigo.. You can imagine our annoyance on the way back when we worked out where we were and realised that the Sainsburys was only a direct 5-10min drive from home..

First gear in this car is pretty unforgiving and I’ve stalled it a few times. But I’m sure that after a few days practice driving manual will be second nature once again. Am very excited about having a car again. Yes, it presents its own set of issues, but on the whole we both feel quite liberated..