August - December 2000, January - December
2001, January 2002
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No sooner had Terry and I returned to New Zealand from Japan
than we found we had been reassigned again! This time, we were
returning to the United Kingdom for an extended assignment of up to
a year! Seeing as it would be such a long time between visits home,
I asked Terry to take a photo of some of my friends that I had to
leave behind. (L-R)
- Strelka - a Husky puppy originally from
Hameleys toy store in London, England.
- Colleen (rear) - A Sheltie Collie and another
English doggie, she came from a store around Hemel Hempstead,
Herefordshire, England on Terry's first trip to Europe.
- Suzie (front) - A very cute Akita puppy that
Terry bought for his wife Stefany in Shibuya, Tokyo,
Japan.
- Rosie - Another Japanese doggie, a Sheltie
Collie from a shop underneath Tokyo Station.
- Svetlana - A cute little Husky puppy from
Johnsonville in Wellington.
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On the way to England Terry and I passed through Los Angeles,
and this time we were able to take an overnight stopover
(particularly as the company was flying Terry Economy Class instead
of Business Class this time!). Here I am at Santa Monica beach,
with the sea in the background. Luckily it was quite cool as far as
temperatures went, so I was very comfortable! |
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(I don't know what it is about being in the proximity of
Hollywood, but get MaryFurr in front of a camera there and all of a
sudden she's posing as a film star! - Ed.) |
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After a ten hour flight from LAX into Heathrow, and a rather
involved train journey to Brighton (never take suitcases
across the London Underground!) soon we were at our home in
Brighton. By this time, I was in the mood for more
sightseeing!
Here I am in front of Arundel Castle in West Sussex. The best view
of this castle is across the other side of the shallow valley from
where the town sits - it's just like a picture postcard, and the
sort of castle view that Hollywood might use... |
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Terry's wife Stefany came to spend Christmas with us in
England, so we all did some sightseeing around the place while she
was here. A pity it was winter, but there you go...
One trip that Terry, Stefany and I did was a visit to the
historic naval base at Portsmouth. Here I am - on a very
cold day, mind you - in front of Admiral Nelson's flagship at the
battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory. It was quite a
surprisingly small ship for the amount of people it carried in the
days of sail!
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Another ship involved in British naval history that I was able
to see- and a current part of the modern British fleet - was
HMS Invincible, veteran of the Falklands war in the early
eighties. The working naval base and the historic dispays at
Portsmouth are right next to each other, so it is easy to contrast
the historic ships with their modern counterparts.
Did I mention how cold I was in this photo? I guess as it
was December, it should have been expected...
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And this is how cold it really got! Snow fell over most
of England between Christmas and New Year, just about the time that
Terry and Stefany went on an excursion through Hampshire,
Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire.
Here I am at that famous English rock venue, Stonehenge. I had
to borrow Terry's scarf so I wouldn't freeze in this photo! Even
fur wasn't quite warm enough!
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After Stonehenge we arrived in Bath - famous for its hot
springs and Roman baths. Driving through the countryside in the
snow was a lot of fun, with the sun shining it was like being in a
picture postcard!
Stefany and I pose for Terry in the city centre. A little warmer
than Stonehenge, which was nice.
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I just had to pose for this picture - snow all about,
with blue sky and hills rising in the distance. Very nice. Lucky I
have fur to stop my bottom from freezing, don't you think? |
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It was all too soon that Stefany returned to New Zealand,
leaving Terry and I behind. This didn't stop us from doing more
sightseeing as the opportunity arose.
Here I am at the town of Battle, in front of the actual
battlefield for the Battle of Hastings where William the Conquerer
conquered England in 1066. It seems so peaceful now - and the
events so long ago. It is funny how there is so much history here,
especially when at the same time in New Zealand nothing much was
really happening - for the next 500 years!
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Peek-a-boo! Playing hide-and-seek with Terry at Battle Abbey
(right next to the battlefield above) was a lot of fun! |
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One of Terry's business trips took us to Birmingham, where one
of the local attractions was the Cadbury chocolate factory. I never
realised that Cadbury (and Bourneville) were actual places
and not just a made-up name! Mmmm, chocolate...
Unfortunatly we didn't do the factory tour as a) the factory was
crowded, and b) the cost was over 8 pounds (=NZ$25 approx). A bit
too much to pay for a factory tour, we thought!
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A nice thing about being in England is that the rest of Europe
is not very far away. One Saturday Terry and I took the fast-ferry
from Newhaven to Dieppe in France for a day trip, which was a new
experience and a lot of fun! The first time that we took a boat to
a foreign country and returned to the 'home' country on the same
day. Whooo!
And of course, you get to meet new people on these trips. What a
nice panda fellow, though I can't quite remember his
name...
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Of course, when one is on a ferry journey, having a drink at
the bar is one of the things one must do. I am a little
surprised at the Hoverspeed lady though, has she not served foxes
at the bar before?
I do like her uniform though. So retro it's chic - even if I had
to restrain myself from calling out "Thunderbirds Are Go!"
from time to time!
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Another day trip we did was to the Submarine Museum in Gosport,
near Portsmouth. One of the exhibitions was of various Royal Navy
weapons, from WW2- vintage mines to an actual decommissioned
Polaris submarine-launched nuclear missile, complete with
associated launch consoles!
Here I am sitting on a Royal Navy Spearfish torpedo. It was almost
as much fun as sitting astride that 12-inch gun on Corregidor, I
find there's nothing quite like having something large
and[Censored by the Management - Ed.], it really excites a
girl! [Okay, enough of that, this is a family show! -
Ed.] |
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And on the way back from Gosport to Brighton, we called in at
an air museum at Tangmere, near Chichester. Imagine our surprise
when we saw a de Havilland Sea Vixen aircraft on display - and
naturally, as I am a vixen myself, I just had to pose in
front of it.
The Sea Vixen was one of the last Royal Navy carrier fighter
aircraft, being decommissioned in the 1970's when the last
conventional carrier, HMS Ark Royal, was scrapped.
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"Fly Navy, Foxy Lady!"
[Quite the show-off this time, isn't she? - Ed.]
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Here I am with some of my new friends in Terry's flat.
- Fritz the fox, from Germany
- Herman Bear, from Rye (he went back to New Zealand for Stefany)
- Frederika, the Border Collie (rear)
- Esmerelda, the Sheltie Collie (front)
- Badger!
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Ahhhh, summer on the south coast of England. Here I am taking
the sun on the verandah of Terry's flat in Brighton. The knotted
handkerchief is so British, don't you think? |
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In April Terry and I went to Memphit Mini-Con in Seeheim,
Germany (an hour's train-ride out of Frankfurt). I met a lot on
interesting people there, and had a great time! |
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Whaaaat?!? How did this get in here? I thought
that no-one was watching, and he is such a nice coyote!
[Sorry, couldn't resist! -Ed.] |
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On the way back to England, Terry and I stopped briefly at
Frankfurt for some sightseeing. Here I am in front of the Frankfurt
central railway station. Very different to Hamburg when we went in
1997! |
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Back in Great Britain, one weekend Terry and I went up to the
Duxford air museum in Cambridgeshire. It was a very interesting day
out for both of us, there was such a variety of both vintage and
modern aircraft exhibits to see - including this example of an RAF
Avro Vulcan nuclear bomber. This is certainly a case of "aluminium
overcast" if there ever was one - it's huge! |
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As well as examples of British aircraft like the Vulcan, Hadley
Page Victor, Concorde, the TSR2 and Harriers, and American B52s,
SR-71 Blackbirds and B17 Flying Fortresses, there were aircraft
from other places. Here I am in front of a Swedish SAAB "Draaken"
("Dragon" I think), which in contrast to the Vulcan seemed to be an
aircraft you put on instead of climb into. Just the thing for a
Sunday afternoon, eh? |
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The northern hemisphere summer soon came upon us in 2001, and
so Terry and I headed off to Germany to attend Eurofurence 7 in
Freusberg Castle, Kirchen, Germany. For a change, instead of flying
to Germany from England we decided to take the Eurostar
cross-Channel high-speed train to Brussels, then connecting
Continental rail services to the con. Here is the Eurostar train
pulling into Ashford International station in Kent, where we
boarded the train. |
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Terry and I had arranged to meet up with John Tatman, a UK
furry fan and representative for the UK-based comic company United
Publications, who was also going to Eurofurence. Here we are on the
French side of the Chunnel traveling at over 200km/h towards
Brussels. What does that gesture of John's mean, I wonder? It
must be some kind of greeting! |
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After a delayed connection in Brussels and manhandling our gear
across half of the German rail network, we arrived at Freusberg
Castle. It really is a beautiful place, just out of a picture
postcard, and in the mornings you can hear the church bells from
the valley below softly ringing. A wonderful place to spend the
weekend! |
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Later that month and back in England, Terry, some of his
workmates and I visited a former British Government nuclear
facility north of London. This was an underground bunker that was
intended to be used to run the country (or what was left of it)
after a nuclear attack. Apart from the irony of seeing tourist
signs boldly pointing towards a "Secret Nuclear Bunker"
(if it was secret, you wouldn't know, would you?), the main
emotion I came away with was the difficulty in surviving such an
attack in the first place, even if you were in one of these
bunkers. I got the feeling that the best thing to do in a nuclear
attack was to run outside, put your head between your legs and kiss
your bum goodbye. It'd be quicker. |
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One thing we found in England was that some local beers had very unusual names - for example, "Old Peculiar", "Nasty Nick", "Bishop's Finger" and "Spitfire".
Imagine our surprise when Terry brought home a bottle each of "Fox's Nob" and "Dog's Bollocks"! Frederika and I just HAD to try them... |
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Like many others, Terry and I were caught up in the events of
September 11 – in our case, we were in transit through Los
Angeles to Portland to see John Plunkett before continuing on home
to New Zealand for home leave. Instead of three days visiting
friends, we spend five days waiting for LAX to open and trying to
get the next flight back to New Zealand in the turmoil that
followed.
This is me in front of the memorial display in the LAX
Hilton.
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On the last day of our forced stopover in Los Angeles, Terry
and I managed to meet up with some LA furry fans and artists,
including Brenda DiAntoinis (left, front), Chris Sawyer (rear,
second from left), Megan Giles (rear, third from left) and Roy
Pounds (front, on my right). The chap whose shoulder I am resting
on owned a rather impressive piece of military hardware, which he
showed Terry – and now I am slightly worried as to whether we
should have got a cultural briefing on the effects of such weaponry
on non-Americans! |
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We finally made our "Escape from L.A." on September
15th, and next day we arrived in Rarotonga for a quick stopover.
After the security checks and bustle of LAX, it was a blessed
relief to arrive in a country – a small dot in the vast
Pacific Ocean – that appeared to be untouched and untroubled
by recent events.
An hour and a half in Rarotonga, then we flew for four more
hours to New Zealand and home – arriving the following day as
we'd crossed the Date Line!
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All too soon our home leave was over, and it was time to return
to Terry's UK assignment. As we'd both got rather sick
of Los Angeles by this time, and flight routing via Singapore
looked rather too close to Afghanistan for comfort, we decided to
travel through Hong Kong. Just as well it turned out, as en route
from Auckland the Americans started bombing Kabul…
Luckily, the Conrad International Hotel where we stayed the
night in Hong Kong was very good at helping us relax. Right down to
the complimentary rubber duck in the bathroom!
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We had over a day for sightseeing in Hong Kong, so one trip we
did was to take the Peak Tram to the top of Victoria Peak on Hong
Kong Island to see the view. Unfortunately for Terry, the pervading
tropical haze made getting a decent photo of Hong Kong and Kowloon
extremely difficult… |
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One famous Hong Kong person we met was Jacki Chan, the fame
martial-arts film star. He even agreed to pose with us! What a nice
fellow.
Hmmm, "Madam Tussard's" sounds familiar for
some reason. Maybe that's why Jacki wasn't terribly
active?
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At the Madam Tussard's exhibition on Victoria Peak, I got
to meet the Chinese Premiere. I was told he was the head of the
Chinese Communist Party, and as I like a good party myself (you
could even say I'm a party animal!) I though he would be a
good person to know! |
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Another return to New Zealand in December, and as we were preparing to go back to the UK for the rest of the project (Terry was supposed to be there until September 2002)
Terry was told that the project was winding up and that he was to pack up and return to Wellington! Of course, we were already in New Zealand at the time, so we had to go all the way back
and close down the aprtment in Brighton.
This time we went through Singapore en route to the UK. Here I am in front of that famous symbol of Singapore - the "Merlion".
Very nice - but very hot as well! |