Cannot believe I am already turning over the first page of my tacky Aussie calendar. Goodbye Byron Bay lighthouse and hello... some waterfall in NSW. How can I already have been gone a month?! A whole twelfth of my time here is over!

We planned to go see The King's Speech the day after my last post but somehow I looked up the wrong cinema (who would've thought there'd be more than one in a little town?) so the movie wasn't playing at the right time. Ended up just having lunch at a bakery place, doing a little shopping (looking), buying 'magic corn' and then quickly having a look in one of the op shops - I got videos of Peter Rabbit and Fly Away Home for 49p each!

Being away from Australia on Australia day was a bit sad, especially seeing photos on Facebook of everyone's fun times. They did try to make us feel right at home on the day though, with a barbecue held by Turner house with vege hot dogs (not so Aussie but still tasty) and then an 'Australian' meal for dinner - bbq chicken, vege skewers, some mash pie thing and homemade lamingtons (which weren't much like ours). 'Aeroplane jelly' was playing and Aussie flags were set up everywhere when we got to the kitchen and all the staff were wearing what they obviously thought were akubras, but actually turned up at the sides like cowboy hats. The teaching gaps went into London to go celebrate with fellow Aussies which I was really jealous of, but hearing about the night was fun in itself. The only other Australian accent we've heard apart from randoms at the train station is an ex-Macrobbian who worked in Highlands in 2007, who is visiting for a week or so at the moment.

On Thursday 27th we decided to walk UP the hill to see what was up there. We found, wait for it, FLAT GROUND. Can you believe it? We're actually pretty close to the top so we didn't have to walk very far, thank god, it was freezing. We walked past a bunch of nice houses, a boys' grammar school and a fish and chip shop and Greer bought an illegal ('not to be individually sold') ice-cream at a little shop. The idea was to actually find somewhere to go for a run sometime, but the ground is not very even anywhere and I still don't have any runners.

The day after, on our day off, we made chocolate slice and went and actually saw The King's Speech (at the right cinema this time), which was pretty good - funny and sweet but not much really happened. Caitlin, Janet and I also went out to Yate's again and had fun, although it cost us a whole $3 to get in this time. I was really tired by 2am or so when we left, pretty sure I looked like I was on drugs because I could hardly keep my eyes open! The other girls were too tired/sick to come out but hopefully we can go out as a big group again soon!

Working the next morning was exhausting but I only had to get through to 12.30pm when Caitlin took over. We did some Chinese New Year crafty stuff which wasn't too bad seeing as I could sit down for a lot of it and just be tired. After lunch I decided to start on the stack of Disney movies left in my room and finally watch the Lion King. So what if I slept for 2 hours about halfway through. It was actually a good afternoon - the sleep was amazing, finished the movie, had a shower and then it was dinner time.

On Sunday all the boarders and us boarding gaps plus Rose went to the Science museum. First we went to the 'launch pad' where there was all this interactive sciencey stuff, then we watched this little show on structures (riveting, hey?) and then we went to IMAX to watch Deep Sea, an hour long film narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. It showed some amazing creatures, although the 3D graphics made it a bit hard to focus at some times. The ones I remember/wrote down were the fried egg jellyfish, mantis shrimp, feather stars and the mola mola (click the links to see them, it's worth it). We had some time after the film to eat lunch and have a look at other exhibitions but all the girls really wanted to do was go to the shop so we spent a while there. I finally got a street map of London and bought this weird sweet called moon rock, it's basically honeycomb but worse.

I was on call again last Tuesday and had to take a girl down to the hospital in the morning for a fractured thumb. We were back at school within 1.5 hours so it wasn't too bad. In the evening I went for a walk about 4pm (start work 5.30pm on Tuesdays) after deciding that I don't want to waste any day. I followed Sam/Amanda's advice to follow the path at the back of the cemetery. You come out at a road, cross, and then see a 'public footpath' sign leading through a dark ominous place where the footpath looks like it's been made by one person's tracks. It was really nice though: fields out to the left; the sun was peeking through the clouds, fog and trees; moss stains on trees and wooden fences near the path; sky writing that looked a bit like the sun's rays that kids draw; cut up tennis balls on top of stakes which line steps going up from the path into houses; a thin homemade wooden fence. I hardly saw any people, but one man spoiled it a bit, smoking, looking at his phone and not watching his dog at all, which probably did all the sh*t that I saw. It was also a really muddy walk, some spots I had to walk right on the edge of the path so I wouldn't slip over and my boots were covered when I got back. I walked about an hour all up and I felt really good afterwards, the fresh air was great even if I was wearing my big coat.

Wednesday Caitlin and I went into London, specifically to Vauxhall (pronounced Voxal) to see if I could get my camera fixed. Of course, the problem was just a little switch that I or someone else had knocked and I didn't even know existed. Ah well, the guy was really nice about it even if I felt a bit silly. We got lunch at a little cafe, both ate from the breakfast menu - eggs on toast and homemade banana bread for me, and porridge for Caitlin, who was disappointed there were no crumpets left. We wandered down a little street and came to this cute little community animal farm where I took heaps of photos, now that my camera was working again. They had rabbits, chickens, sheep, goats, cows, a turkey, guinea pigs and horses, although they were in stalls so we couldn't really see them. After wandering a bit more, Caitlin got excited seeing some people playing soccer, using their hands at first and making us all confused. We walked over a bridge to the Tate Britain and, although we only had about 10 minutes there before we had to find our way back to the train station to get back in time for work, it was really beautiful and kind of inspiring. There were all these school groups sketching and taking photos and I felt old.

On Thursday we went into town just to get a few things before lunch, leaving a few hours to plan travel afterwards. We decided on going to Italy for 10 days before Turkey and staying in Istanbul a few days after the tour. The tour being a Topdeck tour around Turkey over ANZAC day, which we booked just after we booked Berlin. It is going to be a verrry expensive month. Anyway, we decided we'd go to Oxford the next day so we also spent a bit of time looking at things to do there.

We bought our bus tickets the next morning, £13.10 each for return to Oxford. Transport is seriously the most expensive thing here. Being so impressed by the transport system though (trains so often), we were very surprised by the bus being 10 minutes late! We got off the bus in High St, had a look in the Oxford shop where I bought Oxford Uni socks for £3 - very exciting - and then went into the Covered Market. It wasn't really a market, just a few rows of shops with narrow paths in between. We did see/smell amazing cupcakes/cookies though. Then we wandered to find Oxford Castle and booked a tour for 20 minutes later. The guy told us a couple of things we could do for that time and we did happily - climbed this random hill, looked at the view over the castle/Oxford, took photos/got very cold and then came back down for really good 2-for-1 hot chocolates to warm up. Our tour guide was a 'prisoner' in the Castle from the 1700s or something, called Gypsy Boswell, in the clothes and everything. We went up one floor and she told us about Henry I's daughter Matilda, fighting over the thrown with her cousin Steven after her dad died; another floor up about the hard labour that the prisoners had to do every day; and on the top, we came to an open roof with some more views. Then we went down to the bottom to the 'crypt' where there have apparently been lots of ghost sightings although we didn't see any. We wandered through a bit of a museum section of the castle and then back to the shop where we bought postcards and touristy things. We took a while to decide where to eat, mainly due to expenses but also trying to find a place we could actually sit in. We ended up eating at EAT, sort of a sandwich-y type place but with soups and muffins and things too. They give student discounts! Greer got a soup and the rest of us had felafel wraps. We couldn't resist getting McFlurries even though it was bloody cold and then we headed past the town hall towards Christchurch, one of the colleges. We got in for £4.65 and saw the stairs from Harry Potter, the dining hall, cathedral and lovely open quadrangle with the Tom Tower in the centre of one side. The sky was grey but it would have been so gorgeous on a nice day. The shop inside had proper Oxford t-shirts for £10 but I didn't buy one - maybe next time. Thinking of getting a hoodie though if we can, even it's from Amazon. We left, had a look in the town hall, then went in search of the bus station... We found it and 20 minutes later we caught our bus, and it was freezing by this time - not impressed! When we got back to Wycombe we power walked up the hill, being so cold, and we were going to go out but the other girls were all tired/sick again. We ended up booking our flights: to Milan, from Rome to Istanbul and then back to London. It's getting serious!

I had yesterday morning off so after breakfast I walked down the hill to check out the op shops. I found 3 in total, but only bought from the first - a sheer-ish white shirt for £3 and an oversized red-orange jumper for £2.50. Overall, the prices are too much to spend on things that I don't absolutely love, but I think I'll need to go at least every month, just to check. I finally checked out the 99p store, which is pretty much like Poundworld but a bit smaller. I got this silly little jewellery holder which mainly just has my rings on it at the moment. After lunch I was on duty so I went with the girls to a cheerleading workshop with some external teachers. It looked so fun, I wish I were more flexible and dancey! I mainly took photos of the girls, but I did learn the moves for one chant, L-E-T-S-G-O, let's go, let's go, yeah x3. A couple of hours later we went back and watched what the older girls had prepared, an actual routine. Last night the girls had hot snacks, which means they can cook noodles and stuff they can't touch during the week and then we watched Beethoven.

Today we had G-Factor, as in Godstowe's X-Factor. All the boarders had to be involved and us gaps had also been working on something for the last week. We had brunch today rather than breakfast and lunch, so most of the girls got up about 8am, Sam made porridge and the girls watched the Hannah Montana movie. We also made muffins with some amazing icing Sam made. The girls practiced their acts, then we had a service run by David about showing off your talents and not wasting them, and then brunch. I finished work at 12.30pm so I headed over to the gap flat to practice and watch Izzy and Em being transformed into Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue respectively. There was an interval about halfway through and we got changed into our costumes - spare Godstowe uniforms, covered by big coats. After the rest of the performances it was our turn as the 'special guests'. Janet was a bit worried about the reactions of the girls to the song we used - Keep on Moving by Five - as they wouldn't know it, but we got such a huge cheer at the end and so many faces in the audience were trying very hard not to laugh at us. Will have to link to a video if anyone puts it up. We got a big box of chocolates to share, but I'm really trying to slow down on the rubbish food from now on.

Sorry for such a long gap between posts and such a long, boring post!