I have an account with a bank in Australia, and recently, through some form I’ve filled out, they’ve discovered my London address. Unfortunately, the UK address has made it into their system. And they’ve sent a credit card statement out with the UK address, through their standard local mail system, with no postcode, and without “UK” written anywhere.

I wouldn’t know about this at all if at least some staff at Australia Post and at Royal Mail weren’t very clever. Without any demand for extra postage, the letter from Australia was delivered, with only a house, street and number in London to get it here.

Test your postal service today!

Two posts in one day? Just some quick lists, anyway.

Five Great Things In The UK

On the other hand…

Oh, there are stickers on my bike now advertising my scooter travel site: byscooter.com. I wonder if they’ll work, and if they do, why I bothered in the first place. It’s mostly a personal thing, but hopefully someone will get something out of it. Actually, typing that, they have. A researcher collecting odd toilet signs spotted the picture of the toilet in the youth hostel in Gent, but I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find it. Oh all right, it’s somewhere on this Belgium page. Enjoy.

So it looks very much like my wifey and I will be buying a house in Mt Nebo. That’s a really, really exciting prospect: riding a scooter through those winding roads is what most of Brisbane’s biking population does at one point or another. If you want more details (and you know me) let me know and I’ll drop you a line. But yeah, there are still affordable pockets in Brisbane’s (Australia’s?) continuing real estate rush.

For this one, I get to thank Google, for connecting me to a small independent website at 2am. Mmm. Life becomes rose coloured when you realise you won’t have to deal with the selfishness of many London drivers or the sheep mentality of many London pedestrians for ever. There’s a silver lining, coming soon.

Meanwhile, we’re just back from a really good week in Cornwall with Mother-In-Law. (She’s had a lovely time, by the way.) If you go, don’t try to do too much, like we did. Needed another day of not doing much. Disappointed by The Eden Project, unfortunately. The buildings (biomes) are just beautiful, but up close they’re just greenhouses, with nothing super new. Kew Gardens is more interesting, because the surroundings are beautiful. Eden just isn’t yet, but it is young and has room to grow.

On the way back, we went to The Bath Arms in Crockerton, near Warminster (BA12 8AJ ). Definitely recommended for the excellent food (a chef from The Ivy), great prices and good real ale on tap. Also great is The Red Lion in (near) Kilmington which has fantastic atmosphere, fires, locals, walking sticks for sale, and lets you know what guest ale’s on now and coming next.