Well, needless to say i had a GREAT birthday. Thank you soooo much to all those people who emailed, phoned, and left messages on this page, Facebook and my phone, its really means so much to hear from you all. *KISS AND HUGS* Does make me miss everyone though! :-(

Despite one little hiccup early in the morning (reversing one of the staff cars into a hedge which got caught under the back bumper and cracked it when i drove away...could NOT believe my bad luck), Ty and me spent the day together. I picked him up from the station in the morning, then we hung out in Salisbury, then he came back home to the cottage, then Kirsty and us two went to see the new Simpsons movie, then we came back and had a fantastic dinner at the Pub, it was really special.

He stayed another day and we just hung out around Farnham. He jumped on the bike and i ran and we took off up the road so i could show him some of the countryside...though we didn't make it back for an hour and a half...we were both nacked by the end too! Presents were slim this year for obvious reasons, but Ty did manage to make up for it by getting my a heaps of random presents, including a new mini IPod Shuffle to put music onto for my running, sooo cool of him.

Not much else going down. I guess you may of all heard about the flooding here in England, its pretty bad but luckily for me theres no flooding in this area at all, its all around the middle of England i believe.

Can't wait until tomorrow morning. As ive previously said, the lady who looks after Madonna's horses works at the pub sometimes and we often get to go riding. Well its finally my turn, and me and Bryony are going there in the morning to go riding for a couple hours!! OH MY GOD LOL 8-D Unfortunatley though, we aren't allowed to ride them for one reason or another when Madonna is at home, and apparently she is due to come next week for the whole of August.....BOOOOO. Anyway, im sure the experience of doing it just once will be memorible enough.

Ill let you all know how its goes! Take care all oxoxox

(1,132-acre Ashcombe Estate)

Harry Potter Madness & My Birthday Plans

Well its been an interesting weekend so far. Friday night was MADNESS. It progressed slowly and snowballed into crazy catastrophy of collosal proportions. Well...it seemed like it at the time, and after all, i did up with a new copy of the 7th and last Harry Potter book in the series at 1:30am on Saturday morning.

Basically, up until recently, some of the girls have been saying that the head chef here is an arse. And finally i too now conclude that he is indeed an arse. To cut a long story short, service on Friday night didn't go very smoothly due to lack of communication between us two and his mouthing of that im a shit waitress etc etc, then finished the night at about 12pm, holding back tears.

I held it all together reasonably well, knowing that me and Bryony were going to go for a midnight dash to Shaftsberry (small town 20 mins away) at midnight to buy a copy of Harry Potter each. So we both finished at midnight, i skulled half a glass of wine (much needed) and dashed to the car. The car was indeed a VW Polo thingy that id never driven, and i also didn't realise it had a security system...which i soon discovered it infact did!! LOL

So at 12:30am on Saturday morning, and 3 very very loud and long soundings of the car alarm (and ill remind you that this is all right next to the pub with all 8 the rooms full of guests), and 3 rounds of stricken panic attacks and disbelief from the both of us, we arrive in Shaftsberry at 1:30am to a sworm of people lined up outside a little book shop. Everyone was saying the same thing, "Oh my god, i can't believe we're actually here at this hour buying a book". But none the less, we were all there anyway LOL

I will never forget that night. It was like one of those nightmares you think you'll never wake up from, but it had a happy ending :-D

And last night i had a brilliant conversation with my big bro, Ty, who informs me that (dispite our last conversation stating otherwise....shithead) he can indeed make it to come down and see me on my birthday next Thursday!!! YEY! I was so excited i could barely sleep last night, thinking of things we can do while he's here. I have Thursday and Friday day off, so no doubt its going to be fantastic. The new Simpsons movie is definitely on the cards for Thursday afternoon, then him, me and a few of the girls will still have dinner at the pub that night.

I CAN'T WAIT!! LOL

Anyway, i must be off, back to work. Ive got some photos to upload as well, so ill get that done tonight or tomorrow or something. Hope everyone's well!! OXOX

A Dorset Day Trip...including Stonehenge!

Well i had the best day in Dorset so far. Today was my first day off after 8 days of work in a row, so i made the most of it and took off in one of the cars with Kirsty (seen in the photos on Flickr) who also had the day off.

Since learning that Stonehenge was kind of near by here, i was like, i HAVE to go. So we have just spent all day basically cruising around the stunning Dorset countryside, visiting castles etc (including the one they used for the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie!), and of course we drove out to see Stonehenge!

It was absorlutely amazing. The stones weren't as big and spread out as what i thought they might have been, but they were still surely awesome to say the least. It was really cool cos they have little mobile phone style speaker thingies that you hold up to your ear as you go around and it narrates the history and myths of the stones at 7 different points around the area. Of course you're not allowed to touch them, there is fencing all around it that you can't pass, but you do get close enough.

I did take a far few photos, but im just going to chuck a few on cos it takes like 30 mins for this computer to upload about 6 photos! Anyway, so after we did our day trip, we finished up at the local gym, which was ggggreat. Obviously i haven't been to a proper gym in almost 4 months (GASP!), but i felt fantastic, no different to what i did back home. I have been trying pretty hard to stay fit and healthy though, running 4-5 times almost every week when i could, so its definitely paid off.

Tomorrow me and Kirsty will hit the gym again, then i have to work lunch, then there is a festival at a local gardens/nature park thingy about 2k from Farnham which sounds as if it going to be pretty cool. There is supposed to be bands and stalls and all sorts of things. Supposedly its a bit exxy to get in, but the owner of the Museum, Vicky, buys the girls tickets every year apparently, so we get in free! So us girls, Kirsty, Sian and Bryony are going to pack a lunch and head there after lunch service here tomorrow, should be an awesome afternoon i think.

Im also starting to get a better idea of what i want to do after leaving here. I really like working here, but im getting itchy feet already, i want to keep traveling so badly! Bryony just got back from a week in the Scottish Highlands and said she had the most amazing time of her life and she's going back ASAP. I was just looking at the photos she took also and they look incredible. So when i finish here, i was thinking of doing a week there, then getting a Eurail ticket, which gives you pretty much unlimited train access in 18 countries of Europe (not including Britian...how shite) for a certain time period (depending on the ticket you purchase).

Bryony also did this before coming to work here and said it was one of the best things she's ever done. So yeah, ive calculated that i should have a fair enough amount of money to be about to buy one of these tickets for 2 months (about 720 Euro or AU$1,100) which isn't too bad considering. I will still of course have to pay accommodation etc, but at least ill be free to just go where ever i want, when ever i want to, in most countries id like to visit. So i was looking to do that during September, October i imgine, and even into November, after ive got enough money from working here.

Also Ty was planning on doing the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which i might just join him for part of it i think, so thats at the end of September as well. Im getting all excited just thinking about it all!! Theres so much to do and so little time and money to do it! Plus i don't want to leave it all too late cos its going to start getting mighty cold. The weather today was the most amazing ive seen since ive been here, and for some reason i can't imagine thats its going to last too long!

OH!! And its my birthday in 2 weeks tomorrow, YEY! LOL 23, Im getting old :-D

I was thinking of just trying to arrange the other girls to get the night off (there are a few random other local girls who work here too, so they might cover us...cross fingers) and just having a nice night here having dinner at the pub, i think that would be awesome. So yeah, i have that to look forward to as well! I am working alot, but im still trying to make sure i keep my eye on the goal, to keep traveling. I don't want to get bogged down. It would be lovely to continue to stay here, but theres so much more to see, i can't wait to get started!

Well do check out my photos of Stonehenge etc, they're pretty cool. Theres only a few there anyway. More updates soon guys! OX

Well here in Dorset the weather has been slowly improving, after about 3 solid weeks of rain! Ive just been working almost every day. Its been good though, no complaints at all. Saturday was a gorgeous day, so we made the most of the sunshine and went out to a little fair that was happening on the roads here in Farnham. It was so typically English and fun, drinking pimms in the sunshine.

Id love to add more photos but its going to have to wait because ill be here for an hours cos the computer here is so slow. This is the only one i could be bothered putting up for the moment. As you can see it was a gorgeous day and i just hope it continues!

Nothing much else to report, im doing really well, even going to join a local gym nearby for a while i think, save running on the roads the whole time. Hope everyones well!! OX