International Bognor Birdman 2007

Hello all! Finally, here is the tale of our day at the Birdman Competition in Bognor Regis on the Saturday before last...

Around midday, we set off for the annual Bognor Birdman, which we'd planned to go to ever since I'd researched English festivals while we were still in Australia! The Birdman is all about human powered flight, and involves people jumping off the end of the pier wearing clever/ absurd/ hilarious flying contraptions and seeing how far they can “fly”! Check out the Birdman website for bizarre sentences you never thought you'd see...

“By 1990 the record stood at 71 metres with the Germans taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, beating a 10 metre Concorde, 4 penguins, 4 Ninja Turtles and an inmate from Ford Open Prison - minus his passport! The jackpot distance was now 100 metres, the prize a cool £25,000.”

Anyway, it turns out that the main day of the two-day competition is the Sunday, and only the serious contestants (aiming for the distance and air time prizes) jump on Saturday as well. No doubt many of the others ruin their costumes after one jump, so they might as well do it on the day when the most people are watching! So despite the fact that we only saw three people in total jump off the pier, and they were all wearing modified hang gliders rather than the giant wings/ bee costumes I was hoping for, there were lots of other things to do and we had a wonderful afternoon regardless!

The drive to Bognor Regis took about an hour and we went through some beautiful country. We even went through the village of Clapham and passed Hamblin Hall! Upon arriving at Bognor Regis, we discovered that there were not too many indications around town that the Birdman festival was currently taking place, and in fact it turned out to be not very crowded at all. The day had quite a “relaxing family day out” kind of atmosphere.

We found the beach and parked in a grassy field where some people were endeavouring to fly a kite. We walked past the “Boat Pound”, a yard filled with colourful tinnies, and onto the beach. There was no sand, just smooth stones of various colours. There were change huts along this end of the beach, only these ones varied in design and colour and were larger than the ones at Brighton. Other than a group sitting on camp chairs in front of their hut, the beach was quite empty.





Once we reached the pier, passing a little passenger train and a skinny but quite friendly cat on the way, we were in time to await the flight of last year's winner, the current record holder. I think he is a hang gliding instructor. We watched from the esplanade, so the action was quite a distance away, but there was a big screen on the shore end of the pier showing close ups of the contestant preparing for his jump, and an announcer giving a running commentary. Anyway, they each have a 10 minute window in which to jump, so they wait on the end of the pier and hope the wind becomes helpful.






That first guy we saw jump went the furthest of the three we saw – 71.5 metres (I think the record is 80-something) – and it was about 12 seconds from when he ran off the pier (only a few metres of run up) until he landed in the water. The waiting boats then went out to collect him and his glider. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that I was videoing this jump; however, due to the fact that my camera was actually set on photo taking mode, my “video” consists of a photo of him running off the pier, and a photo of him getting picked up by the boat (i.e. I thought I was starting and ending the video with those clicks!).

The rest of our afternoon consisted of exploring the local shops and beachfront markets (where we both bought new hats), laughing at the gaudy show-type rides along the esplanade, watching some “Egyptian” dancers (i.e. middle aged English ladies in bright jangly costumes), walking on the beach, listening to a band, and seeing an awesome aerobatics display over the sea! It was one plane, doing amazing stunts such as flying upside-down, shooting straight up until he just hung there, then spiralling downwards and straightening up immediately, plummeting towards the water, etc! Very very good!!!

The worst part of my day was when I ordered an iced coffee (my FAVOURITE drink) and literally received a lukewarm cup of coffee with ice cubes floating in it!!! I had been especially pleased when ordering it, too, since it was 10p cheaper than Ben's tiny glass of orange juice and I thought I had hit the jackpot (or at least the cheap iced coffee shop!). So, as you can imagine, I am quite devastated at the thought that it may be difficult to find REAL iced coffee here... :( Life is tough, I tell you.









We left at 5pm and headed off to Matt and Kat's for tea, taking some detours to fill in time as we were early. We stopped at a muddy little harbour where I took some photos, and we also dropped into a Roman castle complex that was closed for the day (this wasn't as interesting as it sounds, as buildings have been built around it all and we couldn't go inside). And you know how the rest of that pleasant evening went!





Well, I hope that's enough photos for those photo-loving poll voters out there! :) Goodnight!

PS. My favourite (modified) photo from Bognor Regis...

What's in a name...?

Apparently, I've unwittingly returned to my ancient roots! Just found the following on Facebook...

"Of all the Anglo-Saxon names to come from Britain, Alcorn is one of the most ancient. The name is a result of the original family having lived in the village of Alchorne in the Parish of Rotherfield, Sussex.

Spelling variations include: Alcorn, Alcorne, Aldcorn, Aldcorne, Allcorn, Allcorne, Alchorn, Alchcorne, Auldcorn, Auldcorne, Elcorn, Elcorne, Elchorne, Euldcorn, Euldchorne, Haldcorn, Halcorn, and many more.

First found in the county of Sussex, where they held a family seat from ancient times, long before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Some of the first settlers of this name or some of its variants were: James Alcorn, who settled in New York State in 1804; Matthew Alchorn settled in Philadelphia in 1868."

- www.houseofnames.com Swyrich Corporation

To point out why I loved this... Rotherfield is in East Sussex, the next county over. We live in Crawley, West Sussex... 34 miles away. Well I never!!!!!

How technology addicts order Friday night takeaway in 6 (or 7) simple steps

Latest addition to the “simple steps” series!...

Step 1: Discuss with spouse that takeaway sounds like a good idea (verbally, not via instant messaging – even we aren't that sad!). Decide on Indian food.

Step 2: Google “indian restaurant crawley” and find a restaurant one recalls seeing in real life: http://www.tajmahalcrawley.co.uk/index.php. Peruse takeaway menu on website.

Step 3: Choose dishes by looking up unfamiliar words on Google – eg. bhuna, do piyaza, madras, keema and peshwari. Browse resulting recipe websites to gain idea of ingredients and deliciousness potential. Simultaneously expand knowledge of Indian cuisine.

Step 4: Decide on lamb madras curry, garlic chilli chicken, and plain naan. Phone restaurant and place order for pick-up.

Step 5: Use http://www.multimap.com/ to view route map from home to restaurant. Ascertain it is only 1.06 miles away.

Step 6: Plug address into GPS and drive to restaurant following TomTom's directions. Then tuck in to a scrumptious Indian meal!!

*Optional* Step 7: Post details and photos of meal to blog! :D

Miscellaneous social occasions...

Hello readers! I've decided to write an entry about our recent visits and visitors, as they are starting to add up! I still need to tell you about last Saturday, when we went to the Bognor Birdman Competition, but I will save those stories and photos for the next entry!

As a brief update (more details in future entries), the first two days of my new job have gone well. I've mainly been doing quite repetitive computer work, but that is because my boss (Declan) is really busy, and the lady I'll be working with (Aliya) has been away sick. Soon I'll start learning and doing lots more! I'm blown away by how huge and organised the company is though, and I think working there will be a great experience. By the way, apparently I'm actually a Training Coordinator (same as Aliya), not a Training Administrator! :) Ben's first few days have been interesting and he's currently very exhausted, but I'm sure he will tell you all about it sometime... now on with the guest gossip, social stories, party particulars, dinner details, etc!...

The Sunday before last

A week and a half ago, Trev and Sharon invited us back to their place for tea after the Lindfield gospel meeting. Another young couple, Len and Theresa, were also there for tea. They live in Hove (“Hove actually”), half an hour away, so we were really surprised that we hadn't known earlier that they were around! Len and Theresa are from Guyana, which is in South America, bordered by Suriname, Brazil and Venezuela (thanks Wikipedia!). They have been here for about a year and will be going home before the end of October. Len is studying a Master of Computing at Brighton uni, and Theresa is studying to become a CA! Anyway, we had such a great night getting to know them, eating tea and then ice cream out on Trev and Sharon's lawn, and later sitting around the lounge room until (as usual when we're at T&S's) it was a few hours later than I would have guessed!! They also told us the story of how they met, which was really interesting! Anyway, we definitely plan on spending more time with Len and Theresa before they have to go home – it was a really special evening! (Len has also been reading this blog and he told me he would comment – so you definitely have to now, Len, since you're featured!! :P)

Cooking Comp: Round 1: Girls

Friday of last week marked the kick-off of our “Boys vs Girls Cooking Comp” with Trev and Sharon. I had mentioned this idea to Sharon the day they came to lunch at our flat (see mustard anecdote), and she absolutely LOVED it... An hour later, my vague plan of “we cook for the guys one night, then another time they cook for us” had morphed into a competition with rules, rounds, a set number of courses, a budget, and eventually JUDGES!!! I decided to feel quite scared... Sharon is a VERY good cook and a total foodie, and I am not very confident about my cooking! :P Anyway, the date was set for Sharon's and my first turn, we secretly chose our theme and recipes from Sharon's stash of recipe books, Sharon did the ingredient shopping (I got a couple of missing things), and on Friday afternoon at 5:30pm, our kitchen frenzy began!

Trev wasn't yet home from work, so Sharon set Ben to work with some pruning implements and instructions consisting of “Trev hates that tree”. We then measured, mixed, stirred, fried, kneaded, mashed, poured, rolled, flipped, etc etc etc, until, at 7:30pm (serving time according to the rules), we were ready to serve up. Apron-clad, we carried our delicious dishes of Indian food to the table, accompanied by enthusiastic variations of “it smells/looks DELICIOUS” from the men. I can't remember the proper names of all the dishes, but there was corn on the cob in a yummy sauce for the entree, and the mains consisted of roti bread, coconut rice and butter chicken. In all our opinions, it was a very very scrumptious meal. :) See photo evidence below!

The date has been set for the boys' turn, and already they have a bigger challenge than we did: GUESTS! That was meant to happen on each of our second turns, but Trev and Ben volunteered to cook on Sunday week, when Matt and Katharina are going to be at Trev and Sharon's for tea after the Lindfield gospel meeting. The boys have already got some ideas for their meal... so in due course you will no doubt hear/read all about it!

Evening in Hindhead

On Saturday afternoon, Ben and I drove to Bognor Regis, a coastal town, for the annual International Bognor Birdman Competition. More about this festival in my next entry; right now I actually want to talk about what we did afterwards!

Having still not caught up with Matt and Katharina since we arrived, we had asked them if they wanted to go the festival with us. They had other plans during the day, so invited us for tea that night instead...

It was great to catch up with them! Their new place is really nice, although apparently a bit short on furniture as the removalists damaged a lot of it and it's currently in getting repaired! :S Katharina cooked a delicious dinner, we did lots of talking, showed them Ringo photos from their wedding and ours, and formulated a rough plan for a future trip to the snow!!! A very productive evening indeed. :)

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos (same for the next two social occasions in this entry), but I guarantee I will do so next time we see them! Which is only 1.5 weeks away!

Malcolm comes to lunch

On the Sunday just gone, we invited Malcolm for lunch after the meeting. He's newer to Crawley than us, and he moved here for a new job (something to do with wireless networking...?). Although he comes from near Cambridge, he's originally from Zimbabwe! We taught him to play Rook, which he picked up quite admirably! Anyway, it was excellent getting to know Malcolm better, and no doubt we will be seeing him quite often as he is the friend who lives closest to us!

Dinner with the workers

Last night (Tuesday), the workers, Judy and Heather, came for tea. It was the first time they'd been to our place, and it was really nice to spend some time with them! They are currently staying at Steve and Anne's house while they and their two young sons are holidaying in Italy. (Steve is Terry and Olwen's son (people from earlier entry with the huge dogs), and also Trev's cousin, and they also go to our meeting.) Anyway, we showed Jude and Heather our wedding photos and some from our honeymoon, so we pointed out our families and friends and especially anyone we think might come and visit us while we're here. :) So that was a lovely evening too!

Well, time is getting on and it's already past the bed time I set for myself! Thanks for all your comments and/or emails, and happy birthday to the following people who have recently clocked up another year... Lachy, Tilly, Annalise, Uncle Owen, Grandpa, Kat, Monique, Gaylene, and Tim E. Happy 25^th wedding anniversary to Mum and Dad for Monday 3^rd, and a belated happy father's day to all dads especially mine! Goodnight! ox

Notting Hill Carnival 2007

Hello all! Well, this entry is a belated account of our day trip last Monday to the Notting Hill Carnival, a 2-day, Caribbean-themed festival held annually in London...

Monday was a bank holiday (which seems to be a public holiday for which nobody knows the occasion), and after being picked up by Trev and Sharon in the morning, we all boarded the train to London. Once in London, we changed from the train to the underground, and soon arrived at Notting Hill. Walking towards the festival along with lots of other people, we saw police on foot and on horseback, a bus set up as a Crime Reporting Centre, Portaloos, and a truck cab full of toilet paper!

It wasn't until we arrived at the main area and the celebrations really got underway that we could truly appreciate the sheer volume and, er, “vibrance” of the Carnival-goers! It was absolutely incredible - a visual overload!!

Throughout the day, small street parades came by every now and then. These consisted of a large number of people shimmying their way down the street wearing elaborate, brightly-coloured costumes. Many of the costumes stuck up 2 or 3 metres above the person's head, and were often wider than the trucks in the parade! (Other costumes made up for this by being barely there!) One person had a giant chandelier jiggling 2m overhead, others wore large baskets of cotton balls as headdresses, and one woman was dressed in a wedding gown the size of a small lounge room. Sometimes their protruding headwear got caught in others' headdresses when they turned to look at something! Many of these costumed, dancing parade marchers got left behind and could be seen rushing down the street behind their parade for some minutes afterwards. There were also trucks carrying DJs, steel drum bands and more dancing people, and even some buses and tractors. But I think a few pictures might bring this scene to life more than my words can!...

A hint of how crowded it was...

A policeman gets out of the way of someone who has been left behind!...

Here are some videos - watch the crowd ducking when the green costume comes past, and check out the size of the crowd in the second video!...

This year they anticipated that 900,000 people would attend – which, from what we saw, seems about spot on! In addition, there were 11,000 police officers on duty there – a number that was really put into perspective for me when I realised it equaled the entire population of Dalby!!! At one point we were standing on a street corner and I counted 29 police officers within 30 seconds – so we certainly felt safe!

Of course, almost as interesting as the parades were some of the people who came to watch them! Lots of awesome hair styles and braids, plus wigs, tattoos, piercings, etc! Every time a parade was coming, people would rush to the edge of the street and try to find a position where they could actually see. With people pressed close all around and bouncing to the loud music, I imagine I went some way towards understanding what a mosh pit must feel like! Not to mention the fact that whistles labelled with different countries were being sold as souvenirs, and the DJs coming by would shout "blow your whistle!" to the hyper crowd, who would obligingly reply in the dulcet tones of a million "phweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet"s!

Me with a policeman who was getting into the fun of the festival...

A talented bird, apparently...

There were also lots of food stalls selling jerk chicken and other Caribbean food. Ben and I had some roti (bread) with curry goat and salad, and later on I tried some roast corn on the cob – delicious! In the afternoon we had ice cream cones and shared a cup of fruit salad – watermelon, pineapple and grapes.

Despite the ridiculous amount of people, which I think was the most people I have seen in one place in my life, it was actually quite a laidback day and we even fell asleep on the sidewalk while relaxing in between street parades!

At 5pm, we headed off to Chinatown for tea. The underground station near Notting Hill was so crowded that they just had all the gates open so you wouldn't need to swipe your ticket and hold people up! At Chinatown, we let Sharon (a foodie and the one whose idea Chinatown was) choose a restaurant and order the food. It was delicious!

On the train back to Crawley, everyone except me fell asleep, and we arrived home at about 9pm – exhausted and (in my case) aching. What a day – it was GREAT!!! I hope you enjoyed the photos. :) Cheerio, Anna.

I got a job!!!!!

Hi friends and family! You will be delighted to hear that as of Tuesday next week, I will be working as a Training Administrator for OCS (www.ocs.co.uk), less than 2 km from home!

It's been a busy couple of days on the job front...

I had a job interview on Thursday for a Logistics Administrator role at Unilever, and another one on Friday with OCS (this one via phone). By late Friday afternoon, I had received offers (via the temp agencies) from them both! During a number of phone calls back and forth with the two agencies, both raised their original hourly pay rate until they were equal (due to the agencies reducing their service fee percentage, not the company paying more).

OCS then came back with the offer that I can choose my own working hours (35+ per week), so if I want to work 50 hours a week with 15 minute lunch breaks, they are happy to pay me for whatever I write on my timesheet, as it will be a very busy role! As the hourly rate was equal, I chose OCS mainly because of this flexibility and the fact that this job sounds more fun and varied than the other! :)

OCS (whom I hadn't heard of until yesterday) offer many different service solutions for businesses - cleaning, catering, security, etc. According to the website, it's the "largest privately owned support services company in the UK", has been in business for 107 years, and is still wholly owned by the founder's descendants. They have over 32000 employees in the UK... well, over 32001 now!! :)

My job is a contract position for a few months, and has been created as a result of the company needing to put >180 employees from 20+ different sites through some of the 40 role-specific training courses to be held multiple times in 6 locations! This is due to the implementation of a new computer system, SAP. So I will be booking people in, following up no shows, arranging trainers' schedules, preparing resources, producing reports on progress, organising room bookings and catering, etc. Should be interesting at least!

Anyway, it's definitely time for bed! Goodnight!