Homepage Working Woman Currying Favour Scottish Highlife Victims of Crime Getting Noticed Phantom of Manchester Visiting the Bay Area When Irish Eyes are Smiling Carribean Summer American Pie in the Sky

22/09/2000 - Working Woman by Nancy [top] Good news for us - after leaving one job I found out I got another. I left Argos today for the last time - not really that sad about leaving the job, but I'll miss the people. They were very kind to me and for my leaving present they gave me a dancing bear. I've had my eyes on this bear for two months now, and as I was leaving they handed it to me all wrapped in shiny paper - been doing the "bear cha-cha-cha" ever since. Earlier tonight, I received an email offering me my old job at the Texas Water Development Board. What a stroke of luck for us. After returning home, we'll have a week to find a place to stay and get settled in before I start work. That leaves Mark to sit by the pool and contemplate what job he wants to take - if any (so he says)!! Can't wait to return. 14/09/2000 - Currying Favour by Mark [top] Our combined leaving do took place on Thursday the 14th of September in the form of a curry at the New Tabak indian restaurant in Rusholme. There were twelve of us in all - Nobby and Carol, Ann, Simon and Dave "yo yo" from Argos, and Keith Taylor, Steve Flint, Steve Hopper (happy shopper), Matthew "dog boy" Rice and Richard "Mansfield stag boy" Evans from IBM, and a good night was had by all. The Argos contingent retired after the meal (which was superb), and we moved on with the IBM crew to the King's Ransom pub in Sale for some more liquid refreshments. It was packed inside with a live band playing, but we sat outside on the decking by the canal, and it was much quieter. It was also raining, but hey, this is Manchester - luckily, we were under a covered section. We all had a good time - Nancy provided the guys with enough ammunition (including the "sulky" chair story) to give me a hard time until I leave. We all left at around 11:30pm, slighly the worse for wear. A top night out. 10/09/2000 - Scottish Highlife by Nancy [top] Our day in Edinburgh went too quick. But what a wonderful day it was. The sun was shining, and the wind was blowing. Scotland is a gorgeous country. Of all the time we've spent up North, I'm already regretting that we didn't spend more time in the kilted land!! 31/08/2000 - Victims of Crime by Mark [top] Not a good day today. Discovered this morning that Nancy's purse had been stolen - money, credit cards, drivers license etc etc - wouldn't have happened in Wales!!! Cancelled the cards, but some thieving Mancunians were already "mad for it" and had gone on a shopping spree at our expense. 29/08/2000 - Getting Noticed by Mark [top] Gave my notice in at work today. Much rejoicing, feasting and merrymaking ensued, tempered by fears that I was about to bag the profits from my Fantasy Cricket league and flee the Country. 28/08/2000 - Phantom of Manchester by Nancy [top] Went to see Phantom of the Opera in Manchester's Opera House Theatre tonight. Happy Anniversary (just a few months late) to Jennie and Gerald. A very good musical, I especially like the chandelier scene. 20/08/2000 - Visiting the Bay Area by Mark [top] Travelled the sixty or so miles to Colwyn Bay cricket ground in North Wales today to watch Glamorgan put Notts to the sword. A very sunny, warm and pleasant day. Well, for the first hour of play that is. Then it pissed down like there was no tomorrow. After two hours of solid downpour, decided to call it a day and drive home. Half way home the sun comes out again. We are informed by the radio that it is now a beautiful summer's evening in Colwyn Bay and the cricket has resumed. Much gnashing of teeth, banging of steering wheel and general tantrum activities. Notts take advantage of the bad weather to beat Glamorgan - arse!!! 12/08/2000 - When Irish Eyes are Smiling by Nancy [top] What a long day. Worth it, but by the end our eyes were barely staying open!! We took a day trip via the fast ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire - at 4 am. This entailed leaving Manchester at 1am to drive to Holyhead. We took the train from Dun Laoghaire into Dublin, and spent all day there. Mark "pulled" Molly Malone (well the statue anyway), we visited Trinity College and went shopping (of course). And no trip to Dublin would be complete without visiting the Guiness Brewery. Toured the Museum and sampled the final product. Returned to Dun Laoghaire, had chips by the harbour and shopped (of course!!). We watched the sun go down and discussed what we would do if we won the lottery (Damn, that Guiness was good!!). We took the 10:50pm ferry back to Holyhead - arrived back at midnight ready for the drive home. Got back to Manchester at 3am and slept for Texas (and Wales)!! Didn't get up until 2pm on Sunday afternoon (Damn, that Guiness was good). 06/08/2000 and 07/08/2000 - Carribean Summer by Mark [top] Went to Old Trafford cricket ground to watch the fourth and fifth day of the third Test Match between England and the West Indies. Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, and we had a great time. West Indies made a good score (for about the only time in the series) and we saw Brian Lara score a fantastic century. Security had been tightened today after a plague of streakers yesterday. Only one got on today, and was promptly flattened by a rather highly motivated steward. Monday was all set to be a very interesting day, with either side capable of forcing a win....until the rains came. That pretty much signalled the end of the game, and forced us to beat a hasty retreat. Still, Nancy did get her England cricket sunhat - not that she needed it today. 31/07/2000 - American Pie in the Sky by Nancy [top] Well, it's been a very long and frustrating weekend over here! We (finally) went for our visa interview today - Monday. And god what a weekend it was. We drove up to London on Sunday, normally about a 3.5 hour drive. However, the whole of England decided to congregate on the Motorway and it took us a whopping 7 hours to get there. We went a total of 5 miles in about 2.5 hours. I was never so sick of the car by time we FINALLY got there. Our hotel was about an hour outside of London. So, bright and early this morning (about 5:45) we walked 2 miles to the nearest train station to get into the Embassy by 8am. We made it with plenty of time to spare. But that was about all that went our way today! We went in for our interview, which if you think about it, you would probably think of the 2 of us in a small room with an immigration officer. Well, you would be wrong. It was actually about 50 of us in a waiting room and the officer would call us to stand in front of a desk to answer all kinds of questions. It was really bizarre. Actually, come to think of it, it was American bureaucracy (even trying to spell the word is annoying!) at its finest!! After we answered all those questions, we then had to walk down to another desk to fill in more paperwork. And then we had to sit and wait while they made sure our answers were right!! Then they decided they were going to reject our application because we didn't have the most recent paperwork necessary from my dad. So I had to run across the street to call Mark's dad so he could call my dad because I couldn't call Internationally. So my dad had a 4am wakeup call to send us a fax. Unfortunately, my dad turned the paper around the wrong way and faxed us 3 pages of nothing!! So I had to go back across the street and phone Gerald and the whole thing started all over again!! During all of this all 50 of these people had to trek about 12 blocks to the doctor's office for medicals. So about 3 hours of our day we spent in the waiting room of the doctor's. Oh what fun. Then we all frogmarched back to the embassy to (hopefully) receive our visas. Well, they still hadn't received my dad's fax, so in the end we were running back across the street to the payphone to call Gerald, again, so he could call my dad, again. And while all this was going on, the cashier's office closed. So we waited all these hours, finally get all our paperwork, they decide they didn't need it anyway and the cashier was closed. But at least all was not lost as there was a cashier on the other side of the embassy that decided they would take our money. So finally with about 2 minutes before the office closed, we found out Mark was approved. So I guess to sum up this whole email in one sentence, we're coming home (sometime this year!!). We hope to be coming back to my dad's house some time in early November. We'll both be looking for jobs, hopefully back in Austin.