Thorpe park and preparation week

The last two weeks have been a rush with new job assignments, Halloween, picturesque walks, Guy Fawkes night, a visit to Thorpe park and preparing for my trip to Africa.

In work, I've been given an event to organise for March. To a certain extent, it is 'my own' event, as I am responsible for all the logistics. The program is being put together by a team in work and I will be pulling together all the little bits.

Then we had Halloween. I decided to go for Snow White (yes again). After weeks of talking about it, me and Becki finally came up with a plan. We headed to The Plough for a BBQ then picked up her stuff and headed back to mine to get ready. Becki did Rick's make up while I did Becki's hair. We then headed out to meet Rick's charming, pleasant gentlemen friends. I am of course being sarcastic (don't worry, I've already said this to his face). We soon left them, grabbed a tea at Late Night Cafe and had an early night.

On the Sunday, my room mates and I decided to go out for a pub lunch. After waiting 20 minutes to have our order taken, we finally got our meals but boy was it worth it. A full roast with stuffing, potatoes and gravy. To digest, we then headed out to walk around these beautiful ruins.

Then on Tuesday, it was Liz's turn to make dinner for the house. She decided to make a roast, mmmh twice in one week. Roast chicken stuffed with a lemon, roast potato, carrots, parsnips and gravy. For dessert she melted snickers bars and put them over honeycomb ice cream, it was beautiful. We then watched 'The Bounty Hunter'.

It was then time for Guy Fawkes night. A tradition that I hadn't heard of before I moved to the UK. Apparently it's about when this Guy guy tried to blow up the houses are parliament, he got caught and they burned him alive. On the 5th of November, people set off fireworks and burn bonfires. Rick bought some fireworks for his daughter so we all gathered outside to watch the display.

Then on Saturday, we left the house at 9am to headed for Thorpe park. We stopped in Starbucks to get breakfast and got to the park at about 10.30am. We had 'buy one get one free' passes, but because there was three of us, we had to find someone else in the queue who needed a ticket. We were then let loose in the park. Ride after ride, facing straight down, the rush of wind, the surge of adrenaline, loop de loop; it was brilliant! We then faced our fear by going to queue for Saw: The Ride. (see picture below). What made this ride even more creepy was that it was themed. While you're queuing, you hear creepy noises, gun shots; then when you're on the ride, this little puppet comes cycling up to you to tell you that you might not survive. You stop at the bottom of a vertical climb to see a video screen telling you that you did not make it, right before you fall straight down. It's just as scary as it sounds.

As most of you know, I am going to Africa next week. I can't say where and if I haven't told you, then it's not safe for me to do so. Only my parents know the exact country. It's not just unsafe for people working there, but it's unsafe for me. I hope that you understand that I'm not keeping it to myself for any reason other than these are the conditions that I have been allowed to go on this trip. I leave on Saturday 13th and hope you will be thinking of me as I learn more about the world and all the great work that's done in it. I hope to be back in work on the 22nd November so will hopefully write an update then.

Take care of yourselves, be back soon x