30 posts tagged “london”
Been a while since I've posted on this blog, so I'm going to quickly publish a few entries to get myself back in the habit. I'm not sure why you stop doing something like writing in a blog - it's been sitting there annoying me for quite a while. In any case, a while back I decided to go to the cricket with 3 guys from work - this may sound like a NZer's idea of hell - going with 3 poms to a test match at Lords, when our top 4 batsmen tended to average around 22 - but in any case, going to Lords was something I'd wanted to do since being in the UK.
After another looong London winter, it had finally started to warm up - with the week before the game being particularly steamy. However, the day before the test was due to start the weather broke - leading to many jokes about "was that the UK summer this year?". Couple of days patchy play ensued, with the Black caps well on the back foot (although having recovered from being 100/5 in the first innings).
Predictably, day 3 dawned grey and although it wasn't raining when we got to the ground, the signs were ominious. After around 10 overs of off and on again play the heavens opened just in time for lunch. We waited for a while, and when it got heavier, headed to a local pub and watched the FA cup final between Portsmouth and Cardiff.
The rain continued, so we didn't even go back to the ground. Annoyingly, the following morning dawned sunny and fine - so looks like we picked the wrong day. Nevermind, at least I crossed Lord's off my list of "things in London I must do before leaving"!
As Korina and I were going away in January to Cuba, we stayed in London for the xmas and New Year period. Initially we had wanted to go to Cuba then, but it was going to be twice as much, so really wasn't worth it.
We had Cam and a couple of Nicky's mates over for what turned out to be a very drunken xmas day! A large amount of champagne and espresso martinis resulted in our lounge being converted to a break dancing pit.
Korina was surprised that no one ended up in hospital (there was a lot of enthusiasm, but not much skill on display).
New years was also in London. We headed to a pub in Primrose Hill and then to a house party. Unfortunately I was just not feeling the love.
The girls did embibe in a bit more break dancing once we got home.
Well, Korina is finally starting to be a bit more mobile following on from the dreaded spleen incident. Although I'm not that fond of tennis, the chance to do something with Korina after all these weeks persuaded me to accompany her.
In the weeks leading up to Wimbledon, the weather has been, to put it nicely - shit. Day after day of rain. So we were not that confident of seeing a whole day, but having purchased the tickets we headed along anyway.
The day started off at the Walkabout in Wimbledon where we watched the ABs choke in the second half. About this stage I started to wonder if wearing my All Blacks top was such a great idea. Nevermind, it was too late now. So after a pie and a couple of snakebites for breakfast (the staple of any good antip living in London) we stepped out of the pub. To be greeted by a ferocious rain squall. The chance of play was looking bleak.
We jumped on an old London bus which took haf an hour to fight its way through the rain and crowd to the tennis stadium.
About the stage we dismounted the bus, the weather started to look a little brighter.
We quickly found our seats and opened a bottle of cava to be greeted by the news that it would be another half an hour or so.
The crowd was just starting to get restless (or perhaps drunk) when they announced play would resume.
We watched Sharapova vs Sugiyama. Sharapova won in straight sets which was lucky as immediately upon the game's conclusion the heavens opened. Under an hour was the sum total of the tennis we saw.
Again, as I am not that fond of tennis I was not that worried.
We then decided to make our way to the hospitality tent (courtesy of Korina's friend who works for Tennis Scotland).
Being England, we of course cued for another half an hour or so to get in. Once we were in we realised that the lounge was full of pensioners, and even worse, you actually had to pay for drinks! At £4.50 for a glass of Pimms, this had the potential to get expensive!
No matter, having nothing else to do, we proceeded to drink. Me heavily because I was bored, and Korina lightly - because of her spleen.
Eventually they called the tennis off for the day, so we headed off home to the news that some guys had tried to blow up Glasgow airport and Team New Zealand had also lost again...
Well, last night proved somewhat terrifying. Korina and I awoke at 3am by someone in our bathroom. Someone who was not one of our flatmates.
I looked around for a suitable weapon, but forgetting my camping knife the closest thing I could find was an innocuous looking book of human nutrition. I ventured out into the bathroom to find the lights on but no one there. So I then crept out into the kitchen…to find no one. But the lights were on, and the front door was ajar.
So I found a more effective weapon (a knife) and called Bret’s mobile phone. As we didn’t know if the person was still in our flat we then started a room by room search – Korina and me from the bottom, Bret from the top floor.
But they were gone.
Luckily they had not taken my bike, my GPS or Korina’s car (the keys were right where they were fossicking around). The next morning we found that they had taken something out of Korina’s handbag, thinking that it was a wallet – but they had ditched it outside when they worked out that it was a makeup purse containing a scarf.
So, pretty scary, didn’t make for an easy night sleep. I am very glad that Bret is off on study leave today so Korina is not alone in the house. He’s also getting the locks changed – our place will resemble pretty soon.
OK, so its been a really mild winter - but we have had a couple of cold snaps recently, including this morning. When I woke up there was about 5-10 cm on the ground...
Another year, another Waitangi Day pub crawl! Saturday dawned beautiful and sunny, quite unseasonable for this time of the year in London. Unfortunately it also dawned with me having a case of the 'flu. Downing a variety of pharmaceutical products, I decided to head on out on the pub crawl with Korina, Megan, Nicola and the rest of the crew from the Mutrix.
We got there a bit late, which meant that the other 8,000 kiwis on the pub crawl this year had already managed to shut down the tube at Notting Hill Gate - we ended up walking (and drinking!) for the next three stops or so before getting on the Circle Line.
The pub crawl again impressed with the usual selection of people dressed up randomly, including some people dressed in sheep hoodies, another guy with an inflatable sheep attached to his groin and a random Maori fella wandering around with a spare tyre!
Eventually we ended up at Westminister, ready for the mass-haka. Unfortunately, not too many people joined in this year - the 500 or so from last year cut down to around 50-100. Due to my 'flu, I opted out this time around...Although the haka was less impressive than last year, a couple of guys climbed a pole next to Westminster, and Pete did a backflip in front of Police van - so plenty of random happenings.
After the haka we hooked up with Adrian and the other Megan from Deloitte in Dunedin, and after mucking about a bit, crashed a 30th birthday in Chalk Farm. Following on from this, we ended up at Little Bay (again) for another amusing dinner - the highlight of which was probably an impromptu karaoke session. Adrain and Megan were also accompanied by Richard, another fella from Deloitte in Dunedin - who ended up having a little bit too much to drink and ended up crashed on our couch before mains were served!
Following on from dinner we all headed around to the Mutrix, at which stage I crashed out as my 'flu got the better of me. Luckily for me this meant that I missed out on Richard being sick in our lounge and the girls dancing on the chairs in the kitchen!
So another great pub crawl - different from last year - but still good with a very relaxed feel and an ability to talk to a random range of kiwis...
So after what has been a really mild winter in the UK, we've finally had a bit of a cold snap. It even snowed one morning - it was quite pretty - here are some shots from my ride to work...
I really enjoyed the Notting Hill carnival last year (although admittedly I was unemployed at the time, meaning I could get as drunk as I liked without having to worry about a hang over the next day), so I decided to take Korina along as she wasn't in the UK last time around.
Unfortunately the weather was not as good as last time, but we still had a great time - particularly as last time I spent most of the time on the outside of the circuit where the floats were, whereas this time we spent more time in the middle of the circuit where the DJs and bands were.
The best one was with the crashed plane. Very amusing and were initially playing some great tunes - although when we went back later with the flatties the DJ had changed and it wasn't as good.
Well, after 8 months of trying, Korina has finally been offered a proper job. Its amazing how tight things are in the NHS here at the moment - I guess running a £1 billion deficit means that some cutbacks have to be made (and the NHS is running the UK's largest IT project - currently forecast at £6 billion over its initial £6 billion budget!).
She will be working for Sodexho - who basically provide outsourcing solutions in a wide range of sectors, including food service. So, my rough understanding of what she will be doing includes sort of working as a consultant, going into these outsourced food services and trouble shooting what they are doing wrong (and assessing what they do well), putting into place education programmes where necessary.
Its a great opportunity for her, and likely to pay at least an extra £6-10,000 over what she would have got working for the NHS.
Its somewhat interesting to me that the NHS wouldn't even employ her for a new graduate position (or anything more senior), but that in the private sector she is considered a good match for a position requiring 3-4 years professional experience! Sort of says somethting about the level of incompetence of management in the public sector generally, and in the NHS in particular I think.
The good news (for me) for her new job is that it is likely to include a car - which will be good for exploring a little more of the UK and Europe. The downside is that it will require quite a lot of travelling, meaning I will see a lot less of her - however, she's been so frustrated with the lack of progress on the career front that I'm sure she will be a lot happier now - which is really what I care about...
After a complete mission of dealing with the paperwork associated with my company's cycle to work scheme, our HR department and several completely useless bike shops I've finally managed to complete the purchase of my new bike - and not before time, seeing as temperatures have reached a record 36.3 degrees this week making public transport a non-option (as it is always much hotter on the bus / tube than it is outside).
So I went for a Specialized Stumpjumper - I was tempted by the Marin equivalent (which I thought was a little more plush downhill), but in the end I went for the Specialized as it had a better all round ride.
Whilst a full suss bike may be complete overkill for around town - I've wanted one for about 2-3 years, and also wanted to get something that was pretty rugged and that I would be unable to break easily (as I seem to be quite good at this).
In the process of purchasing a bike, I went for a couple of rides out in the country - and managed to get completely lost. Lets just say there are a lot of bridal paths and trails across farm land here, most of which you can use without a farmer coming running out without a shotgun. However, they don't seem to like signs much - apparently they removed them to confuse the Germans in the war (in the event of an invasion) and have never quite got around to putting them all back...hmm...can anyone say GPS...!
