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Monday 3 October
I had a nice weekend spending the afternoons with friends.
On Saturday I met with Jennifer and we explored Camden Market (we had intended to explore Spitalfields but discovered it is
not open on Saturdays!) and gossiped. Sunday I met with two kiwi girls, Sus and Megan, in Clapham Common for lunch.
We then wandered through Battersea Park and checked out the Tate Britain for an hour or so.
Dramas at the flat when I got home consumed Sunday night and most
of my concentration today - to cut long story short: local gang of kids have a key to our front door thanks to silly
new American tenants who thought it appropriate to "hide" it at the front door. No one being prepared to do anything
about it has led me to carry my valuables to work with me today and arrange a lock on my bedroom door to be installed!
And I'm leaving in four weeks! Arrrr!
Thursday 16 October
Just got back from four days in Greece, on Santorini Island. It was a lovely break, but far too short! Santorini
is this amazing island which was once a volcano, until it blew itself up a few centuries ago. Basically what is left
is a cliff! And the villages are perched precariously on the top. October is 'off season', meaning cheaper prices
and fewer tourists - all good! The weather was still lovely, although a bit windy, but I can imagine it would be TOO
hot in the middle of summer, so in all I think October was a good time to go. It was sunny enough for me to get sunburnt
and to go for one swim in the ocean anyway. Other than that we clambered around on Santorini a bit, watched some spectacular
sunsets, climbed a volcano, swam in a ocean 'hot pool', rode a donkey, ate souvlakis and drank ouzo, hired a car and drove
on the right (wrong?) side of the road and generally had a good time!
Tuesday 21 October
I was dreading this weekend because this was the first of two flat-hunting
weekends during which I had to find a new place to live! Luckily the task was not as bad as it could have been and I
have found a new home! I will be living in Pimlico, which is in zone 1 - almost central London! It will be a new
experience to live in an apartment in the city (but not the City). My flatmates will be Kerry, an English girl and Sian,
a Welsh teacher. They seem like really nice girls and so I am really happy to have found this flat.
Sunday 26 October
This week I went to two films and two shows! What a socialite!
I saw 'Young Adam' and 'Finding Nemo' at the movies - both great movies, although you can hardly compare an erotic thriller
with a Disney movie! In the West End I saw 'Tell Me On A Sunday', a one-woman Andrew Lloyd Webber show and 'Stomp',
a spectacular music and dance show involving eight performers making music with their feet, brooms, tools, tubs, buckets,
trash, plungers, bags and more. It was an amazing display of talent. Three of these shows I went to with Suse,
a kiwi friend who I'm really glad to have met.
I am really looking forward to moving into my new flat. I
cycled there on Saturday and left my bike there - one less thing to transport next week. I've found a good gym
to join too and can't wait to get back into that. At the moment I'm doing a David Blaine - fattening up before the diet
starts!
I've got a busy week coming up at work, including clerking for a
semi-judicial hearing involving a complaint against a councillor which should be an interesting day!
Tuesday 4 November
I am now in my new flat in Pimlico! I moved in on Saturday
and have got all settled into my new room. Sian is on holiday at the moment buy Kerry and I have been chatting when
our busy lives cross!
I've been experimenting with ways to get to and from work -
my commute has increased from 40 mins door to door to over an hour, depending on how the trains are running! At least
I didn't have the experience my workmate had today - having to sit in a broken down train for two hours before being forced
to walk down the train tracks to freedom! He was three hours late for work! Perhaps something to experience once,
but not more!
I am feeling very sore, but in a good way, because I have joined
a gym and have been going all out. It feels great to be getting some exercise again, in the form of my favourite classes
BodyCombat and BodyPump!
I woke up bright and early to watch the All Blacks play Wales on
Sunday morning - for a while there I thought I might have to endure some rather bad ribbing from my Welsh colleague! I
just hope there's three more early morning Saturday's coming up!
Sunday
9 November
I've been a week in my new flat and been spending all my time either
trying out ways of getting to and from work, at the gym or settling into the flat. Strangely I'm not sure that living
so centrally will actually make much difference to my travel times, as now it doesn't seem right to take the tube over such
a short distance, so I take a bus, which takes just as long as a tube from zone 2 would have! But the bus is more interesting
- there's always people to watch out the windows.
I went out with Suse and a bunch of girls on Saturday night for
a meal and then to The Grand at Clapham Junction - a known 'cheesy music' club. It was nice to get out for a boogie.
As usual the night didn't finish as well as one would hope, due to the total unrealiability of the night buses. Tonight,
Sunday, I met Jennifer and we went for Dim Sung (spelling???!!) and then to a book launch with Michael Moore, a rather controversial
american writer who had some interesting things to say. I still love how there is always something new and different
to do in this city!
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Monday 17
November
Talk about commutes - this morning I had a nine hour commute to
work in Hackney - from Switzerland! Yep, just had a fantastic weekend in Switzerland and arranged it so that I left
early this morning to get to work for the afternoon. Friday in fact, I worked from home in the morning before heading
to Gatwick in the early afternoon. I arrived in Geneva where my host mother Sylvie met me and we caught the train to
Bienne. There we met my father Jacques and two young sisters, Mounia and Nirmala. They are both so grown up and
beautiful now, it is quite staggering. I still think of them as the little 10 and 11 year olds I lived with, and it's
hard to believe they are now 18 and 19 years old, working and living away from home! And so beautiful too.
On Saturday Jacques took us, the girls and Danny, my brother
and his girlfriend Melanie, to 'Mystery Park', in Interlaken. This is an intriguing 'theme park' which looks into the
mysteries of the world, like the pyramids, Stonehenge, Nazca and the possibility of alien life, all presented in different
ways, such as a 3D movie, a laser light show and a 360degree film. I was absolutely fascinated by it all and even bought
a book by the Swiss-German developer. See it at http://www.mysterypark.ch/index.html?&page_id=4&node=1&level=0&l=1
On Saturday night we had my favourite - fondue, before Danny and
I headed out for a drink and the local with some of his friends. It wasn't too late a night and I was up early enough
on Sunday morning to catch Jacques before headed out for a quick tour in his aeroplane! Nothing like a quick half hour
flight over the hills and plateaus of north west Switzerland. It was great fun picking out the house from the cockpit!
The rest of the afernoon was spent relaxing with the family at the house.
It was just great to see the family again - it felt like going home.
The kids are all doing so well and other than them being a few years older, nothing seems to have changed. Oh, except
the huge difficulty I had in speaking French again! Oh la la!
Wednesday 26 November
Not a lot of news this week. I had a quiet weekend, trying to avoid
the torrential downpour that flooded our entrance way. I met up with Suse and Megan on Friday night for dinner then
on Saturday morning watched the game from my bed. I would have of course gone to the pub had we been playing, but I
a bit sorry not to be down there anyway as it was such an exciting game. The atmosphere in the pubs must have been "raucous"!
Later that day I met up with a couple of people who answered an ad I put on the gumtree, looking for people who want to get
a group together to go skiing in January. I then headed out with Toni to a Porn Star party, dressed in whatever we could
find at the last minute from our warbdrobes! (I hope I didn't look too much like a porn star!) Sunday I met Suse
and co for lunch again and then headed back home for the rest of the day. My foot has been sore for a couple of weeks
which means I don't feel like wandering around shops or museums much. It's starting to feel better now.
Other than that, I am trying to get this ski trip organised and
have also booked a weekend in Berlin with Sara-Jane, a kiwi friend, for next weekend.
The weather has turned to custard and it's raining all the time.
This seems to have an effect on the transport systems (everything does, including leaves and "the wrong kind of snow") and
so my commutes have been getting longer and more frustrating. Patience has never been my virtue and I find waiting for
late trains one of the most frustrating and enerving things. The English way of not complaining about anything
certainly does not encourage the transport providers to get their act together. People are a lot calmer about it than
I am and seem to just accept that delays are the way of life. I guess I had better too or I will go MAD!
Sunday 30 November
This weekend started as the sun went down just after 4pm on Friday
- a dozen of us went to the pub from work to farewell Travis, our favourite aussie bloke. In keeping with English pub
rules, we drank heavily until 11pm when the pub closed and we stumbled out onto the street and home on the bus and tube, all
tucked up on bed not long after midnight, when I called Kimberley and spoke to her for the first time in ages.
Needless to say, most of Saturday was spent in bed until I managed
to go out in the rain, once again as it was getting dark. I met Sarah, a friend of Chris' for a drink then went to Leiscester
Square where I wandered around the theatres looking for a seat for the theatre. Not an easy task on a Saturday night
but I eventually found standing room only at the Shaftesbury Theatre to see "Thoroughly Modern Millie". While the music
and dancing was good, I didn't enjoy it all that much, although I accept that much of this may well have been to do with the
fact that standing is not exactly the best way to see a show.
I woke up bright and early on Sunday and was delighted to see the
sun streaming in my window! I was determined to make the most of the sunny day so jumped onmy bike and headed to Tower
Hill where I joined a large group of tourists doing a London Walk of Greenwich. This included half an hour down the
Thames on a riverboat commentated by a delightful and hysterical Cockney. The walk took us around Greenwich where we
learned about the Queens House, the Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV, the maritime museum and the observatory. After the
walk ended and I'd had noodles for lunch, I went to the museum at the observatory and prime meridian. Of course
by the time I got back to my bike it was dark and so I had the experience of cycling home in the dark on London's streets.
This would have been a much more pleasant experience had my bike not been broken so that I only had the use of my seven lower
gears! Must get that fixed...
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