heya!

I am now in Whitehaven working at West Cumberland Hospital. Everyone up here is lovely and very helpful and nice. They all greet each other by saying hiya. The accent can be quite thick - I've found that I can understand about 75% of the time what people are saying. I'm hopeless at writing down the messages from our answering machine though as I can't make out what people want!! I am working with another dietitian called Emma who just moved over from Ireland.

Last week in London was pretty busy but I had a great time, I really like the city, actually it is hard to call it a city really because it isn't that busy compared to other "real" cities!!! I managed to do some exploring, lots of walking around.



While in London I was lucky enough to score a massive bargain on a car who I named Francesca. She is a dark green ford fiesta who I purchased for 275 pounds!! Insurance on the other hand.... not quite so cheap but oh well. I needed the car for my job as I have to drive around clinics in the area seeing patients. So far, it has been going well with no dramas. Actually I was quite excited because I went up in teh world from my last car - francesca is only 17 years old, and has... wait for it... central locking and a sun roof! Luxury!! hehe.. sad isn't it when such simple things are exciting or amusing. oh well.



I try to make the most of exploring every place I go, so have been venturing out in the lakes district and within the greater area of whitehaven in the afternoons and weekend. It's cloudy during the and then without fail the sun will come out at about 8.30pm for 2 hours before it sets. I've found this is the best time to be outdoors!! I was explaining to a friend the other night that the sun had just come out (at about 8pm) and he was like "what?? the sun is setting!!" I climbed up a fell this afternoon. Apparently that is a mountain, and there is such a thing as fell-sprinting which is basically running up and down the mountains. I was told that there is some sort of event where people try and run up and down as many of these fells as possible within 24 hours - there are 47 to choose from or so I am told!!





Starting from tomorrow I'm on the $2 a day challenge. I've been surprised about how much food I have managed to accumulate for that little amount. Whoever said food was expensive in England was LYING!! Food is quite cheap here compared to Aus - especially if you cook pretty much everything from scratch like me. For example I bought 2L milk for 50p (Au$1) and you can buy a 800g big loaf of really grainy bread for 1 pound (Au$2). Its at least double that back home. Fruit and vege are also similarily cheaper in most cases than Aus. The next picture shows what I will be eating for the next 5 days.