BRITISH CITIZENSHIP.
Gail and I got Brit Citizened.
For all those who think we are OZ deserters, au contraire mon amie. We are now DUAL , or as I like to think, WORLD citizens who can pass unmolested in the EU and no longer be non-dom in the UK, removing at the same time a significant cost exposure.
Here are some shots of the dignitaries who gave us our certificates.
We did.TOUR de FRANCE, le grande departe Yorkshire.
I said in my last post that I would load some pics of Yorkshire's 2014 role in the Tour de France. I haven't. I know anyone interested in our pics would fall into the estimated 3.6 billion worldwide TV viewers who would have seen or can look at 'tinternet for the far better and more spectacular video coverage. So I will just load a heap of Leeds shots we took while getting neutralised, to give you the flavour of the spectacle that was such a sunny success for our adopted county, some say, godzone county, Yorkshire.
The above shots are of our hotel room wot we stayed in to celebrate the coming of our Britishness. Its The Queens Hotel Leeds. A Grand Old Dame of art deco plush.
For those of you who appreciate things bike, you will know the win colours of the rider's shirts are white for best youngest rider, green for best sprinter, red dots for king of mountain, and yellow for overall champ of day. These phone booths show typical routs around Yorkshire that would suit these shirt winners.... cute huh?
The Corn Exchange made an effort and the Trinity covered streets had a countdown clock....
This is a shot from our Queens hotel room, from one of its windows, it had double aspect, posh huh? In this pic though you can see the Aire river, the Leeds rail terminus, some offices, apartments and in the distance, and why we love it here, you can see sheep in the fields. Well, not from this shot, but you can on zoom. We are surrounded by dales and countryside.
So that was Leeds a day before le bike thing.
The actual tour de france was amazingly better than all this, half of Yorkshire's population (est 2.5 mill) filled the streets, in the sun, it was a blast all day with every village throwing a full on party, but we don't spend all our time taking pictures so you can look all that up on t'interweb. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-28179818 for a taste.
WETHERBY COCKTAILS....
Yep, a city style cocktail enterprise invited us to a free food and free cocktail night on Monday. We felt obliged to attend.
We have returned since and actually paid for a meal and drinks because we did think it needed our patronage. I mean a cocktail bar just down the road, how like our old Tokyo home is Wetherby getting?
GYS
Every year, except last year when it was too wet, Harrogate hosts the Great Yorkshire Show, England's largest rural event. Gail was working all three days of it this year so I got her to drop me off one day when she was working in Harrogate Hospital. I went to see the cars and the machines and the animals. It is retail heaven if you want to get decked out in tweed and flat caps, buy art, acquire tools, eat yourself fat or buy stuff on special from stall hawkers that you'll never use. If you have ever been to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, and some of you have, it's like that but with more tweed, bowler hats, and much more animal.
I got involved and didn't take many shots but here are a few my phone took when I remembered to.
There were sheep, cattle, pigs, poultry, small animals and dogs but as I said I was enjoying, not photoing.
WETHERBY FOODIES DAY
This weekend was the Wetherby Food Festival, where providors and cooks from around the district were invited to present the locals with a fine couple of days out, I can hear the music playing still as I write this on Sunday afternoon. It was the first such event for the town and a huge success so I expect it will repeat annually.
A flavour of our Saturday visit follows.
The Organic..... wot's the point?
The delicious, with cream.
The Cuban temptations
The endless snack choices
The dog's delight
Always remind me of this Neil Simone painting .
weak American cocktails
Deep and meaningfuls, over a sip.
And a half hour to eat a local (Bay Horse Pub, North Deighton) massive burger. None succeeded .
And that was it for the first two weeks of July, rather a full fortnight I think.
Roll on the Yorkshire summer!
To get our Brit Passports we have to hand in our OZ passports again.... there is a 8 week process time.... we will probably therefore be stuck here enduring this sort of thing all summer.
Don't feel too sorry for us.
