Volunteering for a community radio station

In Britain, I find that there are many organisations that encourage people to become a volunteer; even the Prime Minster David Cameron keeps mentioning the 'Big Society'. Well, I've been feeling a bit bored at home lately. One day, I read my local newsletter and found that Bradley Stoke Radio was looking for volunteers, I thought it was an interesting opportunity, so I applied.

I actually didn't aim to be a presenter as I'm not good at talking. I worry that I might offend other people without knowing until listeners make a compliant. However, James Hyden, another volunteer, has a two hour music show on Sunday evenings. He suggested that during his show, he could include a feature where I could teach him Cantonese, and in return he would teach me how to speak with a Bristolian accent. I thought this was a great chance to try something unusual, and so I started to appear on his show from last Sunday.

Even though the feature only lasted a quarter of an hour, I had to do some preparation beforehand. Also, some quick thinking was needed during the show; I was nervous at first. However, James is very articulate and helped me to feel more at ease. When our Chairperson listened to it, she found that it was really good and made a recording of the session available online, so that you can now listen to my first ever radio live show! It was fun.

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Having English breakfast with The Mad Hatter

When I went to Bath last month, I was dying for a lovely English Breakfast. Somehow I picked The Mad Hatter Tea Party cafe. The Mad Hatter is one of the characters from a well known English story 'Alice in Wonderland'. The cafe's decor was very cute as it had some pictures and ornaments from the story.

If you are traveling around the UK, you must try this famous traditional English Breakfast. It normally consists of bacon, sausage, egg, baked beans or tomato, and toast. Sometimes you might even have mushrooms and hash browns / fried bread! As long as you stay in B&B (Bed and Breakfast) in the UK, the B&B host should cook you such a breakfast in the morning. If you are the kind of person who likes to spend every single minute visiting places, this full breakfast meal might save you time as you probably won't need lunch afterwards!

The Mad Hatter Tea Party cafe is on the Orange Grove street, nearby Bath Abbey.

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Bath 'sponsor' trip

A few months ago, Visit Bath ran a video competition called 'Bath in 60 seconds'. I entered, and was very surprised and delighted to discover that I had won it! My husband and I traveled to Bath already this year, so we knew this city quite well. The prize included two nights accommodation in a luxury apartment, free entry to most of the Bath attractions, and a comedy show with a dinner for two. We couldn't miss it.

Bath has a long history; it can be traced back to the ancient Roman period. The Roman Baths is a place that tourists should not miss. However, as we had been there already, we instead decided to take boat trip along the River Avon. Since it was a beautiful sunny day, we tried both available boat trips. If you are thinking to visit the River, I highly recommend you try Bath City Boat Trips.

Most of the museums at Bath close at 5pm. When we first arrived, we didn't know what to do for that evening. By chance, we picked up a leaflet for a "comedy walk" called Bizarre Bath, so we decided to give it a go. There were more than 40 people who joined this 90-minute comedy tour. Our performer used jokes and tricks to take us around the city. It was one of the highlights for us.

Note: It takes 1.5 hours to go from London to Bath by train. If you would like to find out more traveling information on Bath or the UK, please feel free to contact me.

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My backyard

I remember when I was young, I was not interested in gardening at all. When I was a teenager, I saw my mum's friend growing fresh tomatoes in his garden, and started to change my mind.

After my marriage, I have my first house with a small garden. However, we haven't followed the British tradition to make our garden looked beautiful. It was because my husband and I were not really into gardening. About two years ago, we moved to a new house with a bigger garden, so we started to do something with it. However, I don't like to plant flowers because they wither too easily. As a foodie, I insisted on growing some veg!

This year we tried growing some French beans. When the first leaves appeared, they seemed struggle to grow strong. However, after a while, it suddenly grew tall and produced a lot of beans. There were so many, we didn't know what to do with them! Fortunately, my father-in-law has a very good knowledge of gardening and knew how to deal with them. He taught us to cut the bean into smaller pieces, boil them for 3-4 minutes, cool them quickly with cold water, then freeze them. Now, when we want to use them, we just take some out of the freezer and boil them for a few minutes, and they would be ready to eat.

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