Beautiful Baby

Last Monday (19th Feb.) Russ' brother and sister-in-law, Bruce and Katie, had an absolutely beautiful baby boy. It's so exciting to have a new member of their family - the first grandchild for Russ' parents. The beginning of a third generation.

His name is Ernest Sylvan Iggy Redden. The names are unusual and have been well thought-out by his parents. Ernest is a literary tribute to Ernest Hemingway, Sylvan relates to wooded areas/forests, and Iggy for the legendary Iggy Pop.

We drove to Bristol this weekend, where they live, to introduce ourselves to little Ernest. He is absolutely tiny, born at 37 weeks, but a good size at 6lbs 11.5oz. He is perfect - an absolutely beautiful little boy!! It's so lovely to see everyone so happy about him - and his parents so proud!! They've done a brilliant job, he's just gorgeous!! (ohhh, so clucky!!)

Pocket Money

Last weekend Russ and I decided to try our hand at haggling - car boot style. Car boot sales are just like markets in NZ, but at these people sell their old junk - besides a few who sell legitimate furniture and crafts. Everyone is set up outside their cars, but strangely do not actually sell things out of their boots as I expected.
We were set up at the Country Markets near Farnham - in the middle of nowhere, by 8am Sunday morning... And even before we got out of the car we had women rushing up to us to check if we were selling perfume or mobile phones... It was pretty intense!!

Almost 3.5hrs later we had made about £43 but came away with what looked like just as much as we'd taken there in the first place...
Was surprisingly fun & definitely worth going to to pick up some treasures!

Home Sweet Home

Welcome to our humble abode...

We're all moved into our new flat in London now. After four days of Russ driving me up to London for work and being stuck in traffic for literally hours over those four days, we though it was a good idea to move up earlier! Believe it or not it's cheaper to drive than take the train, by miles!! So Thursday night was spent unpacking and making ourselves at home. The house is awesome - so cosy and homely!! So here's a bit of a tour...

The lounge, kitchen, and conservatory are on the ground floor, cosy, new, and clean!!Our bedroom on the second floor, which was the master suite until the owner made a third floor... My side's the one with the mirrored wardrobes. And our bathroom is just as nice!

There's one other single bedroom on our floor, then the master suite and second bathroom on the third floor. We have a lovely paved backyard, with barbecue area and shed, which backs onto Cannon Hill Common - a park with soccer fields, children's playground and free tennis courts. It's nice to be by an area of greenery in the middle of a big city!! In the summer it'll be awesome to get out there to read and soak up the sun!!

So here we are, in our first London flat, finally living together, properly!! Absolutely LOVING London!! It's a good spot, in zone 4, a little further out than we had originally planned, but London living costs are pretty steep. We found ourselves an absolute bargain here though!! We pay £600/ month to live here - about 400NZD per week, and you don't get much cheaper than that! We were really lucky to find this place!! Just makes me fall in love with London even more!!