Update promised

EA full report

For those of you who have been wondering where I've been, my sincerest apologies. I have to say that I haven't been inspired to write of late, and the only chance I get to type up my adventures is generally in the evening at home on my laptop. I'm still struggling to adapt to the small keyboard and my typing skills were never that great to begin with, and I get very despondent when I have to retype nearly every second word!!!

The other reason I haven't typed much of late, is that I have setup my laptop with a microphone and webcam, and I generally spend most of my time chatting to David or my family while online (plus when I'm not chatting I watch dvd's from the comfort of my bed)... Having a laptop is great!!!!

At the moment I am sitting at work in the Environment Agency office in Ely. The weather is wet, so Andy and I have opted to work in the office today rather than get soaked tramping around alongside rivers. Unfortuantely the EA server has gone down, and so we can't do any work at the moment - Thus I have decided to use my time constructively!!!

Update on my News:
Since July I have been working for the Environment Agency doing assest inspections. I am based in the Ely, which is a pretty town with a famous cathedral.

Most of the work has been in Norfolk and Suffolk, and I am getting to know some of the back roads and small villages pretty well. Atkins has hired me a car for the duration, and after the initial couple of weeks (when I came home shaking and emotionally wreaked from the stress of driving in UK traffic), I have actually begun to improve and enjoy driving. Generally I drive about 4 hours per day to and from the various sites, and the time in between is spent walking along river banks.

During the first month I was working on the River Thet, and explored the area around Thetford. Some of the interesting places I visited were:

Great Ellingham - village of the Teddies
Elveden - The home of the last Maharajah of the Punjab (Who helped rebuild the beautiful church there). The church is really lovely, but unfortunately it is now right next to the main route (A11) through the area, which means it's quite discouraging to try and stop and visit because you have to battle the traffic to get across the road. I did manage to stop and take a few pics though. Elveden also has an enormous WWII monument on the outskirts of town. It towers over the traffic on the A11, and apparently the people gawping at it have caused more road death accidents than the number of people listed from the town who died during the war!!
Shadwell - This area is the site of an old deserted manor house Shadwell Court, surrounded by beautiful grounds filled with English wildlife. Surrounding the natural estate are Stud farms, apparently much of the land is owned by a rich Sheik who breeds race horses.

During August I have been working on the River Sapiston which flows south from a village called Euston to an interesting town called Pakenham.

Euston - Euston is the home of Euston Hall, the estate of the Dukes of Grafton (Title created for Henry Fitzroy, illegitemate son of Charles II). The gardens around Euston (a portion of which we walked though) were originally designed in part by Capability Brown, a famous British landscape architect of the 18th century. Apparently the aim was to make gardens look like natural landscape, rather than the structured gardens of previous eras.

Mildenhall - Home of a large RAF base (where apparently the townfolk are protesting because the US are secretly bringing in supplies for the troops in Iraq), and some pretty old buildings including the Lark Mills and the old town church.
Ixworth - There isn't much to this small village, besides apparently a listed petrol pump, but Andy and I discovered a great local pub, the Pykerell, which has a daily 2 course special for £4.95!!! A real bargain!!! We almost became regulars there stopping in for a bit of grub! I'd like to say that I ate loads of healthy food there, but unfortunately the meat was very good quality, but the veggies and salad generally looked a bit tired and I didn't eat much!!
Pakenham - The sign for Pakenham advertises it as the only English village with two operational historic mills). These are a watermill and a windmill. Unfortuantely I was there during the week, and they are only open to tourists on the weekend. And my camera was in for repairs, so I didn't get any pictures :( I might go back there next week, in which case I'll definitely take a few!!
Exploring the fields around Pakenham stream this week, we had a hard time getting over some ditches (East Anglia is very flat, so the entire region is covered with man made drainage channels!!). After battling through some serious nettles were decided that instead of going back the way we had come, that we would jump across a 1.5m wide ditch (we couldn't actually see the water as it was hidden by vegetation - over which we were jumping - but we could feel where the bank disappeared). Andy went first and made it over easily, landing nimbly on his feet. After slipping twice and almost falling into the ditch (during which time I managed to get a paper cut from grabbing onto the grass), I finally made the leap. I made the distance fine, but at the last moment started to slip and lose my bance on landing - I therefore threw my balance forward and grabbed the ground with my hands.... Right into a patch of thistles and stinging nettles!!!!..... My wrists swelled up with nettle welts, and the stinging / pins and needles sensation continued for 24hours!!!! Not fun!!!!!

Other than Asset inspections I have been putting the hired car to good use on weekends, and Dave and I have visited some local villages - Burghley House in Stamford, the seaside in Norfolk, and Milton keynes to vsit Neil and Tamren in their new house.