CATS

Today, I have been on holiday beause Chris took me to see the world-famous, Broadway Musical, Cats, which we are immensly lucky to have right here in Stoke for 3 weeks only. The tickets were an early birthday present, as he knew that I have always wanted to see Cats and I would never be able to watch it on Broadway.

I still have the original LP up in the loft but of course haven't been able to play it for years, but it all soon came back to me. It started off with a yard full of rubbish and scrap metal and then the lights went out and everything went black. Slowly dozens and dozens of pairs of cats eyes shone brightly in the rubbish and then loads of colourful strips of lights came on, flashing and chasing, just like Christmas lights. Then the music started and the cast came in.

It started with "the naming of cats", "the invitation to the Jellicle ball" and "the Gumbie cat" followed by "The Rum Tum Tugger", "Grizabella, the glamour cat" and "Bustopher Jones". Then it was time for "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" which of course we loved very much. Before the break we had "Old Deuteronomy", "The Jellicle ball" and "Memory".

The break was roughly about 20 minutes and was swiftly followed by "The moments of happiness" and "Gus: the theatre cat". The next session was quite unfamiliar to me so I think I might have the Broadway version on my LP. That was "Growltiger's last stand" and "Skimbleshanks". "Macavity" still had the same words from TS Eliots poem but the music was slightly different (I prefer the original version). The show finished with "Mr Mistoffelees", "Journey to the heaviside layer", "the ad-dressing of cats" and a most beautiful version of "Memory".

I bought myself a brochure for keepsake. It was one of the best birthday presents for a long time, thanks Chris,X

New addition to the family!

Yes, first we had none and then we have one and now we have two. Meet our little girl, Rumpleteazer. She is 5 years old and we have had her since Sunday.

It's a complicated story... A friend of Lee and Pod's was asked to look after Rumpleteazer when the friends friend went on holiday for two weeks, she reluctantly agreed (as one does), but when her friend returned from holiday, she no longer wanted the cat back. Lee and Pod's friend was now lumbered with a cat that she didn't want in the first place and Lee and Pod could not have her because of Charlie (the parrot).

This is why we have her and I am so pleased. She is absolutely gorgeous, very friendly and affectionate and immensly well-behaved. She seems to have settled in so well but sadly we have to uproot her again on Friday, as we are going camping and need to take her with us. I'm sur she will soon settle again, and she may as well get used to the camping, right from the start.

Mexico - Climate & Creatures

The only problem we had was the heat. The temperature was between 30 and 33 nearly all the time, even at night. We found that very difficult to cope with as we would prefer temperatures between 24 and 28. Even though we were so careful, using factor 25, etc, I still managed to get sunburned on a cloudy day. I didn't think the sun could be so strong that it would burn through the clouds, so I didn't use sun cream that day.

The last couple of days in Cancun was hard as we really had enough of the heat and tired of walking around, but at the same time we didn't want to waste any time, so we felt obligated to go out. Neither of us like to sun bathe or spend much time on the beach, so it meant either riding around on the bus or walking. Even though we had a shower 3 times every day, we still always felt wet and hot and itchy. There must have been a particularly vicious type of mosquito there as even Chris got bitten by them and normally they wont touch him.

On the last day, everyone else in the hostel were laughing at us because we wanted to get to the airport early, just so we can enjoy the air conditioning. To our disappointment, we found that it wasn't working when we got there. However, it was just as well that we had plenty of time as there was a lot of problems with check-in and potentially we could have missed the deadline for our flight.

Anyway, after an uneventful 10 hours we landed at Manchester the following day. Then we spent 17 hours sleeping of the jetlag. Was it all worth it in the end? No - good old Spain is what we are sticking with in the future, cheaper, cooler and less hassle but it was a good experience and we loved the food.

Mexico - Socialising

At night time we often spent a bit of time socialising with the other guests. These were from all over the world but we got particularly close to some Austrians, one who lived in Bali and another who lived in Florida; a French girl who lived there, training to work at the consulate; a couple of Canadian girls; a Mexican lad; a French lad and a girl from Costa Rica. It was really interesting to speak to these people as when we go away normally, we only get to see English people or "Spanglish" as they call themselves (meaning people who are English but live in Spain).

Anniversary

On our 10th anniversary we sailed across to a close-by island called Isla Muheres (the island of women), where we managed to get on a boat tour around the island. This also included snorkelling, which Chris participated in, but I didn't want to get my clothes wet, so I just watched and enjoyed the sun, sea and the quietness. It was a fantastic day, which was finished of with a Mexican meal at a lovely restaurant.

Mexico - continued

The next few days was spent looking around the local area, just jumping on a bus to travel to the hotel zone, etc. We were amazed how cheap everything was. Of course we had to check out the beach and swim in the famous Caribbean sea, and yes, the water really is turquoise and the sand really is snow white.

Halfway through the holiday we took a trip to a place called Chichen Itza. Here they had ruins of pyramids dating back to AD900. The bus took 3 hours to get there and the same to get back, yet on the map it seemed like we've been nowhere.

Mexico - Day One

We finally arrived in Cancun after a long (seemed to take forever) flight. It seemed funny that, although it should be around 7pm, the time was only 1pm in Cancun. We took a bus from the airport to the bus station and then walked the last bit to the hostel. We were quite pleased to find that, although the hostel was very basic, it was quite ok for what we paid.

We set about to explore the immediate area and bought some supplies. We soon noticed that the locals spoke very little English and the little Spanish that we spoke was not much use in Mexico as their Spanish was quite different. With the help of sign language and mobile phone pictures we did manage to get by though.