Back from Budapest... again

Bet you never noticed I was gone. As I went through the Manchester airport, seamlessly moving through immigration, perfectly timing my trip to the toilet to come out just in time to pick up my bag, skooting over to the station to step straight onto my train, I realised that in the nearly 2 and a half months I've been in Manchester, I've had 8 trips away of 1 night or more (of which one was a holiday). Plus, although I've got a bit over the whole explaining to all and sundry what an Australian is doing working out of Manchester (when talking to people who don't have english as a first language, sometimes including americans, who won't notice the accent I just say I'm english to avoid the hassle) there is definitely the advantage that I
have the non-EU passport line all to myself.

I seem to have completely regained my Australian accent. This has probably been helped by listening to triple j on the internet whenever I'm home.

I'm currently deep into house buying mode. I've narrowed it down to two areas based purely on the fact they look pretty from the train. The UK's seen something like the sort of house price increases as Perth in the last few years, so I'm faced with not being able to afford anything with 2 bedrooms in the city centre. So, back to a 15-20 minute train ride every day. I should get lots of books read.

Colin and Margaret are in town, so I went and caught up with them at Stoke-on-Trent, home of English pottery (I don't know if that's what they call themselves, but certainly every brand of ceramic object I could ever have named and many more are based there). We went to the Wedgwood factory, where we were able to continue our aussie theme of "can you believe the cost of everything!". I've almost, oh so close, managed to stop converting pounds to aussie dollars (helped by having to do regular conversions in all sorts of currencies - I bought a jacket in Hungarian forints the other day and gave up trying to convert it from euros to pounds to dollars). This is the only way to be, otherwise you cringe every time you pay £1.60 ($3.60) for a bag of baby spinach in the supermarket.

Btw, did you know that the original Josiah Wedgwood was uncle and father-in-law of Charles Darwin and a fierce opponent of slavery? (And does anyone else find it fascinating that the man who arguably started science down the genetics path married his cousin?).

I'm feeling nice and relaxed this evening, as I've finally joined the gym across the road (just for two months). As well as all the normal gym equipment, there's a pool, spa and sauna downstairs. Now I'm wondering, if I bought a little terrace house with a cellar, could I turn the cellar into a plunge pool.....