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Wednesday 4 June
Bree arranged a flatwarming/farewell for a friend of here on Saturday ight. There were probably about 30 people who came and went. Mostly
friends of Bree's from her class and some friends of Donnas. Also met a few new people who have moved into Guys house
('Finland St') and his third flat ('Staples').
I joined the gym! It is £36 per month and there is a 33m pool and all the usual gym gear, weights and quite a few classes (although none in the early
morning and not many in the weekends). It's a very good price I think, as most gyms are £50. This gym is a 'community'
one. I went for my induction and had a weights programme done for me last night. I am booked in for Aerobics tonight.
I am looking forward to setting into it, as I have missed it. Hopefully I will meet some people there too. I have
been doing some running in the mornings too!! About 30-40 minutes, jogging (almost) all the way! That will be a good
supplement to the gym.
On Saturday the weather was absolutely
gorgeous - 27 degrees apparently! It was great for our party. The days are much longer than at home. I went
for a walk and found Southwark Park and lay on the grass for a few hours. (I have just found out that Southwark is pronounced
Suth-ick, not South-wark. Roger was in hysterics when I admitted that! There are some difficult words here!)
Sunday
was not so nice, so I did some shopping. I bought togs
and goggles (so I can start swimming too) and a cheap denim jacket for going out and a CD/radio for my room. The jacket
and CD player were £20 each very cheap really. It's nice to be earning pounds so I don't have to times everything by
3 anymore! We have a reasonably good mall at the Canada Water
tube station. It has a 24 hour Tesco (huge supermarket chain), only it's not 24 hours on Sunday and so closes at 10pm
Saturday and is only open 11-5 on Sunday. I find that really odd. They are quite old-fashioned re shopping hours
I find. And it's frustrating because during the week the mall shops are only open 9-6 and so I can not go. Very
odd. I would have thought that given this is London and everyone travels for hours to get anywhere, that it would all
the more reason for the shops to stay open longer.
Sunday night I met Andy and Kat at Greenwich for a drink. The English love drinking on a Sunday, as Kat said, it's quite relaxing
and totally different to a Fri/Sat night when it's loud etc. I caught the bus and Greenwich is only about 15 minutes
away. We made a dinner date for next week too. Kate and Andy are training as they leave in four weeks to
cycle to Portugal!! It will be a 10 week trip.
Work is going fine. Adeline, an Australian girl, is back this week in our office, after going to Australia and USA for four weeks. There's
lots of Antipodeans who go home for a holiday. It had never entered my head to do that, I guess it depends how long
you actually stay over here for. But Adeline says not to bother anyway as it's too stressful to have just 10 days at
home, with everyone wanting to do stuff with you. It would be quite unsettling too I imagine, rather like your parents
coming to visit while on AFS!
Friday 6 June
I spoke to Justine last night. She is doing well, she's just got a new job as a sex help-line counsellor! she is very pleased not to be a secretary
anymore as she wasn't enjoying that. We spoke about going to Europe for a weekend soon, so that will be nice.
I
went shopping in 'junk' shops yesterday (there's heaps in Hackney
- £1 shops etc) and bought some bowls and hooks and other stuff for the kitchen/my room. Soon I will be all settled
in! Guy has bought us a DVD player which I have spent the last two evenings trying to tune in!
I had a laundry
DISASTER this morning. ALL my whites are now PINK.
Not just a little rosy, but PINK. The culprit can only be an old purple top that was in the wash. I have had it
for about three years and must have washed it 100 times with whites before (I never separated colours from whites at
home and rarely had a problem). The difference must be that I am using hot water here. I just couldn't believe
it! Although it's not a lot worse than all my whites being
grey, which they were before. I have bought a whole heap of products today to see if I can remedy the problem and I
think I may have to take a trip to the New Zealand shop to buy Napisan!
Other than that all is well. I've got to know Laura, our Irish flatmate this week. She seems really nice. She
goes to a gym in Tower Hill that does real Les Mills classes, and she's given me a guest pass, so I will go and do that soon.
I miss the 'slickness' of Les Mills - the classes at my gym are so basic - tape deck for music and the instructors just seem
to make things up as they go along. And the people are not nearly as nice either - outright rude in fact. As so
many people in the country are. They have not heard of customer service or service with a smile. It's funny really.
Sunday 8 June
I went to Covent Garden with Adeline and her friend Nikki this weekend.
It was a lovely day and we just wandered about and then went to Hyde Park, which is quite lovely. I bought that Napisan
at the NZ Shop and resisted buying the lollies and Tim Tams (the lollies were about £2.50 per bag - what a great business!)
My white T-shirts are back to be lovely and white, although my underwear is all still pink. Oh well.
Monday 16 June
I have settled into a normal routine of work, gym, home and sleep,
all is well. The weather here is ridiculously good at the moment, about 28 degrees for a week or so. It's great.
I went to a Royal parade on Saturday, and actually saw the Queen and Prince William and Harry in the flesh! It was quite
a buzz really, to see them just a few metres away. I was never into the Royals at home, but hey, when in London.....
Monday 23 June
I had a quiet weekend. While it's nice to be 'settled in',
I have not forgotten that I am here to make the most of my time. It is hard after a long week at work though - all I
want to do is relax at the weekend.
Main thing I did was buy a mountain bike! I was all set to
buy a second-hand one, but on my way to the gym on Saturday morning, someone handed me a flyer showing a cheap bike at Decathlon,
the local sports store. Ever the sucker for 'new' as opposed to 'used', I bought it! I must confess it's really
out of laziness - now I can scoot down to the shops so much quicker!
Friday 27 June
The summer weather is getting to everyone here - it's hard to concentrate at work with the
sun shining so bright, and for so long, outside!
I'm all excited today because I have just booked my next 'mini-break'
to Europe - Eastern Europe even! Adeline, an Australian girl I work with, wanted to go to Prague and so, we're going!
We're taking a long weekend from the evening of Friday 8 August to Tuesday 12 August. It only took a few hours of trawling
internet sites to find a cheap flight - easyJet wins out again! I've heard Prague is a beautiful city and cheap too!
The plan is then to go to Glasgow to stay with Justine for her birthday weekend on the 15 August (just a few days later!)
I'm really excited already but may even do another trip before then, perhaps Liverpool?
Last night I couldn't bear to go to spend another gorgeous evening in the non-air conditioned
gym, so I went for a bike ride instead! I rode to Greenwich (which turned out to be quite close!) and a bit further
on. It's great as it is FLAT! No hills! The traffic wasn't too scary - there are cycle lanes in places and
lots of bus lanes (which cyclists can use), and it was after 7pm which probably helped. Still not sure that I'll be
biking in the City at rushhour though!
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Thursday
3 July
I was just complaining
to Lee, an Aussie in my team at work, that I never win anything and that he should give his trip to Spain that
he won to me, when today I won two things! Both won through the travellers' mag TNT - I won two tickets to a screening
of the NZ film 'Whale Rider' on Monday and tickets to a cricket match on Thursday. I'll definitely go to the film and
I'm trying to sell the tickets! (It's such a shame to win tickets worth £50 that you don't even want!)
It's been raining for most
of the week but I'm still holding out for fine weather for the weekend. It's Party in the Park on Sunday and I hope
to go if it's fine. There's heaps of acts (not many I'll go ga-ga over) who play all day in Hyde Park.
It will be a great day if it's sunny.
Monday 7 July
Another glorious summer's day in London! Yesterday I went with Bree to The Prince's Trust Party in the Park. It is a huge concert held in Hyde Park from 12 noon until 7:30pm. There were more than 20 artists including
Craig David, David Grey, Shania Twain, Beyonce, Blue and heaps of other teeny-bopper bands. Apparantly there were 100,000
people there! And I can believe it. It was a bit nuts really, we each had about half a square metre to sit in,
so it wasn't quite the picnic in the park that I had in mind. But it was a great experience anyway. It was cloudy
most of the day but that was probably best, because even with the clouds it was HOT and I got sunburnt!
Saturday night I went to Adeline's party at her flat in Willesden Green. It was neat
to go to a party like back home - just a few people having a few drinks at someone's house. Of course it finished earlier
than I am used to because I had to catch the last tube home at 12:30.
On Saturday I was in a rare clothes-buying mood so I took advantage of the summer sales that
have just started and shopped till I dropped in Canary Wharf. There's a big mall there with all the clothes stores in
a row, so I just went from one to another buying stuff. Nice.
Friday 11 July
Tonight I went with Adeline, Jarlath, Lee and Emilie to an asian
cafe in Shoreditch, "Lennies". It's one of those places that you wouldn't go to unless you were with someone who says
it's good - like I was! Especially when the trip to the 'ladies' involved walking right through the kitchen where I
disturbed a mouse! But we stayed and I had my first laksa - very nice. This was served by a transvesite with nicer
boobs than any of us! Only in London......
Monday 14 July
What a fantastic weekend! It must have been 30degrees each day and my sunburnt face is
proof!
On Saturday I was up at a ridiculous hour in order to get to Syon Park in south west London
for 'Taste Life', a New Zealand wine and food festival. Even waiting for the bus it was great to hear the kiwi accent
all around me. I was invited along by Hayden, my parents' UK wine distributor and spent the day with him and his friends.
We all agreed we could have been in Alexandra with the burnt brown grass underfoot, a cloudless sky and hot, hot weather.
The only thing that gave it away really was the aeroplanes flying low overhead every 90 seconds on their way to land at Heathrow!
On arrival we bought 'kiwi dollars' and then spent them on plenty of NZ wine, oysters and mussels
for lunch and boysenberry cheesecake for dessert! There was so much gourmet NZ-inspired food, it was heaven! Other
than drinking, we watched a polo match between NZ and UK teams, heard that Helen Clark was around somewhere and lined up to
buy a copy of Whale Rider, the book and have it signed by the kiwi actors (quite possibly the highlight for me, who has yet
to see a famous person wanderin the streets of London!) It was a great was to celebrate being a proud kiwi.
Monday 21 July
It was a weekend of ups and downs. I am a bit 'under the weather', but with the help
of panadol, I 'soldiered on'. After a drink at a lovely English pub in Islington with some workmates on Friday night,
I went home, rented a couple of DVDs, got a curry and spent a quiet night on the couch, which was very nice for a change.
Saturday was another glorious day and I spent an hour or so in the park reading yet another
book I borrowed from the library. At 3pm I had to leave the house in order to get to Hampstead Heath, in North West
London, by 5pm. The travel times are frustrating as the last place I wanted to be on a summy Saturday afternoon was
down in the hot tubes! But I eventually made it to Kenwood House, a lovely neo-classical house that features in the movie 'Notting Hill', and had a look around. Then Lee, Emilie, Jarlath,
Adeline and her flatmates arrived and we settled down for a delicious picnic in the park. We were there to free-load
and listen to a Sinatra concert that was taking place on the Heath. We could hear the music just fine and saw the fireworks
at the end and I think we had more fun than those who had paid for the priviledge of being crammed in slightly closer to the
stage than us! We didn't even let the short thunder, lightening and rain storm dampen our spirits!
What did dampen my spirits significantly though was reutnring to the tube station to find some
*$&"£&@ kids had tried to steal my bike which I had, naively, obviously, left chained up there. They did enought
damage to mean I couldn't ride it home and for my feelings to alternate between being angry then upset and wanting to go home!
I hate that London is not a safe place to be. You must contantly be aware of safety, which is tiring and frustrating.
Luckily in the braod light of day the damage was not as bad as I had thought and my local bike shop was able to straighten
things out within the day and only charged £11. But still a nasty experience.
In between those couple of trips to the bike store on Sunday I met Adeline, Lee and co
in town for a delicious Chinese meal where we had several traditional dishes delivered to our table and all tucked in!
It was very tasty and seemed very healthy, not being the deepfried food that I associated with Chinese food. I did a
bit of shopping before going home to pick up my bike and then cycling to Greenwich to return the camcorder I borrowed from
Kat's mother. It was a lovely evening, perfect for the half hour ride with just a little hill!
Monday 28 July
I didn't do a lot worth writing about this weekend. I went for a couple of jogs and a
bike ride. The reason for the jogs are because I have signed up for the Nike Run London! A 10k run for charity on Sunday 7 September. As you will surely know, I have never been known for my love
of running, so this is something rather new for me.
I have become dangerously keen on internet shopping. You can get anything you want delivered
to your door, and because it's such an effort to get to the shops here, it's well worth it. And it's so easy because
it's not real money you're spending, all you have to do is type in your credit card number....
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