This will only hurt for a second

Yesterday was a bit of a funny weather day, with the grey clouds threatening to crack any minute, and casting doubt on my plans to sit in Battersea Park and read my book (aka show off my new haircut to the masses). So I stayed local and did laundry and cleaned the house. This meant that not a single drop of rain fell. Nuts.

Today was a different story though. Rain or no rain, I was committed to heading out and exploring some new sights. I wanted to see Southwark Cathedral, as there has been a church recorded on that site since AD606, but archaeological evidence suggests that a Roman pagans worshiped on the site long before then. Rather than roam the aisles in tourist fashion, I thought it would be nice to sit inside the church and listen to its choir, starting at 11am. Sadly the tea towels I'd put in to the machine took longer to wash than I'd anticipated, and I missed the church service that I'd wanted to attend.

I still headed for the Southwark area though, alighting the train at the London Bridge station for my first tourist stop, The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret.

Down a tiny side street alongside the station, and up a windy wooden spiral staircase of 32 steps, I found myself in the roof of St Thomas' Church in Southwark. According to the information sheet I was given, the entire Church was part of Old St Thomas' Hospital until it was closed for relocation in 1862. The attic space remained completely hidden for nearly 100 years until it was rediscovered by researcher Raymond Russell in 1956.

There are lots of little display cases scattered around the museum that contain samples of the lotions & potions that the apothecaries used to mix up; everything from frankincense, myrrh and opium (dried opium pods were found when the site was being restored). This space is the Herb Garret, in use from 1703 and fully restored in 2006. The museum area also displays some of the old ebony-handled surgical tools and these were admittedly a little gut-wrenching, particularly the gynecological equipment and a nifty dual-purpose device that both pumps your stomach AND gives you an enema - depending on how you use it of course! The museum also shows you how to amputate a big toe (quickly, I'd imagine), and it gives a short - but surprising - spiel about how now-famous poet John Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary working at this site in its heyday.

Arguably the piece de resistance is the Old Operating Theatre itself, dating back to 1822 and now restored to its original condition. The theatre was only used to operate on female patients, because the male patients had their own separate theatre further east, which has now been demolished. Despite the rather primitive conditions, surgeons at the theatre performed a range of operations including amputation; the removal of bladder stones; and even skull operations! Prior to 1846, there were not many reliable anesthetics around, so operations must have been a literal nightmare. It later became more popular to use ether or chloroform to sedate patients, but the operating theatre closed in 1862, three years before antiseptic procedures were introduced.

The neat thing about the operating theatre is that you can stand around it, as the medical students and observers would have done, or else you can go right down to the operating room floor and see the space how the surgeons - and the hapless patients - would have done. The mind boggles!

Heading back down the spiral staircase and into the summer sunshine, I wandered through the Borough Market. Closed on Sundays, it was a very different world from the hustle and bustle I experienced here just last weekend. I called into a cute tapas restaurant for some munchies and a glass of Spanish sparkling wine before pressing on to the next destination.

The thing was, I didn't really have a next destination in mind. So I just wandered around the riverbank area, stumbling across The Golden Hinde, a full-sized reconstruction of the Tudor warship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in 1577. The ship is now open as a museum but seeing the outside satisfied my curiosity plenty, so I kept moving.

It was lovely just dawling along Queen's Walk today, past the HMS Belfast and heading for Tower Bridge. The skies were looking a little grey, but it was quite warm out there and I stopped for a restorative icecream and a bit of a sit-down outside City Hall.

Walking across Tower Bridge, the sirens started blaring and a voice came over the megaphone trying to shepherd tourists off the Bridge. Turns out they were raising the Bridge so that a big boat could pass underneath it. According to the tourist websites, you're supposed to count yourself lucky if you witness the Bridge being raised. The sheer number of tourists clambering to take photos of a raised Bridge was astonishing to me. I thought it was fun to be part of it, but I'm still not really sure what the fuss was about.

By the time I walked around the back of the Tower of London, I was beginning to tire and so I jumped on the Tube to come back home. I feel like from beginning to end, I spent the day seeing things that not every visitor to London thinks to see and with the exception of a couple of wrong turns at Albuquerque, I didn't get irretrievably lost!

Sizing Things Up

Tape Measure
Originally uploaded by Sue90ca: Will be commenting soon, promise.

It's funny, you know. When you move to a new country, you wonder what settling in is going to be like. You think about where you'll live, who your friends will be, and what you're likely to do for fun.

These are important things of course, but there are other more routine considerations you need to make that really only present themselves once you finally arrive. Things like going to the doctor, where to buy public transport cards for your daily commute, and finding the best hairdresser to visit.

Trust me when I tell you that these administrative considerations are nothing compared to the utter mindf*@k that is clothes shopping in a new country.

No matter how much sense it makes, there is no such thing as universal sizing, in clothes or in shoes. So if you wear a size 10 in Australia, you're a size 8 in the US, but you're a size 12 in the UK. And something totally different again in continental Europe (38 or something I think).

Shoe shopping is equally problematic. You're a 7 in Australia, and conveniently a 7 in the US (God Bless America!), a 5 in the UK and a 37.5 in Europe. Or is it 38, same as clothes? Ugh I forget. But don't look to the internet for help on this one; there are almost as many "international shoe size charts" as there are shoe shops, often reporting ever-so-slightly different results. It's a minefield, I tell you!

If you've ever had the misfortune of shopping with me, you'll know I tend to get irritated very quickly in stores. This could be for any number of reasons of course, but mostly it's because other customers are in the store with me. High maintenance, I know - but there you have it. Because I know this about myself, I tend to do a lot of my shopping online. I was so desperate for new clothes the other week, and having a hell of a time finding UK stuff that I liked (or that fit), I ended up ordering a couple of things from a US-based retailer that I know well, and I had the goods shipped over to me. No muss, no fuss. I know the items will fit, I trust that they're good quality, and I shopped for them in my pyjamas. Genius really.

When it comes to building a life in a foreign country, finding the doctor you like, or the supermarket you prefer, or even a hairdresser that won't murder your mane is child's play. Finding clothes and shoes that fit you, without losing your mind in the process, can be really hard work.

No trolls, but lots of (book)worms

South Bank Book Market
Originally uploaded by Miss Gab.

It's a good thing I finally worked out how to find Waterloo Bridge from the station, because just underneath the giant structure is The South Bank Book Market. Every day until 7pm, trestle tables are stocked with second hand books covering just about any subject you can imagine. Given that the day was so nice, and I had no plans at all, I had to go check it out.

The dude in the white hat shadowed me as I wandered from trestle to trestle. At first I thought he was one of the vendors but no, he was just a fellow book worm, trying to find a book to catch his eye.

Along the trestles there were lots of tattered, leather-bound books and some of them were obviously quite special because the vendors had lovingly wrapped them in plastic to protect them. Those books were about 25GBP, depending on the condition. Not knowing anything about rare books, I'm not sure if that amounts to a bargain or not.

I was tempted by quite a few titles, but I settled on "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco (saw the film and loved it); and "The Travels of a Fat Bulldog" by George Courtauld, the story of a Royal Courier who travels to British embassies around the world carrying the Queen's official, confidential correspondence. The blurb assures me that the book is funny, but we'll see. Both of these books were 3GBP each and they were in very good condition, so I considered that sum to be perfectly reasonable.

Given it was such a nice day, I wandered along the South Bank precinct that is very similar to the North Terrace riverbank back home. To my left was the South Bank Centre, home to many arts & festival events in London - big exhibition halls and the like. To my right, the River Thames with loads of boat activity today - I guess everyone wanted to take full advantage of the sunshine.

The South Bank Centre is currently celebrating Festival Brazil, and there were lots of advertisements for music, theatre and dance events associated with it. I stopped to watch a presentation by a circus troupe who were trying to get members of the crowd to join in with them. Some poor schmuck volunteered to learn how to cartwheel and it was excruciating to watch. The poor guy just couldn't do it - but fair play to him; he squatted and flipped the entire length of the rubber mat, encouraged by rows of kids applauding his efforts. Sometimes I am so uncharitable.

I wandered along the riverbank, past Westminster Bridge (Aquarium on my left, Big Ben across the river to my right) and I headed towards Lambeth Bridge.

For reasons known only to the universe, I followed some signs for the Imperial War Museum. I am not interested in warfare of any kind, and even less interested in Britain's role in warfare of any kind, so I'm not sure what inspired me to keep walking. Perhaps it was the prospect of exploring the road less travelled (which given my history is a completely stupid idea as it usually ends up with me getting lost). But on I trudged.

Approaching the Imperial War Museum, I was surprised to realise just how many people were going through there. So many tourists, with so many children, it was a nightmare. I couldn't make sense of the place and the signs for the exhibits were so small, I couldn't work out how the museum was laid out, or how I should approach my visit. I got stuck behind a young family with two kids and the mother decided to read each and every information panel to her kids; it just about killed me. Mum, Dad, two kids and a stroller stopping dead every 6 feet to read - ALOUD - the world's most boring information panels. Yikes.

Perhaps it was the information panels, perhaps it was the crowds, but most likely it was the air conditioning - bottom line was I left the place after about 15 minutes. I will read about it online though, to see whether I should be going back sometime - when the Museum is closed to everybody else but me, perhaps.

I didn't spend a great deal of time outside today but I enjoyed just enough society to say that I have had a lovely weekend. I got to explore a bit more of the city and I didn't get lost. Best of all, I discovered two places this weekend - the Borough Market and the South Bank Book Market - that I suspect will become regular haunts while I am living here. Food and books - easy ways into my heart.

Gluttonous to the Maximus

Borough Market
Originally uploaded by Geordie Munkey.

I set off very early this morning, taking the train to London Bridge Station bound for Borough Market. If you haven't been to London but you've been to the cinema, you might recognise the Market as the place Bridget Jones walks through when she catches love rat Daniel Cleaver with the stick insect from the New York Office. And given that Bridget's apartment is above The Globe Pub that literally overlooks this place, I suspect Borough Market was the very place that Bridget bought the ingredients for her birthday dinner of blue soup, orange marmalade and caper berry gravy. Could be....

Borough Market (pronounced 'Burra', for those Americans playing along at home) is a literal feast for the senses. I got there just before 9am, almost an hour after the market opened. Sellers were still setting up their stores, laying out their wares carefully, just-so. Coffee shops and bakeries were already doing a roaring trade and it was very hard to decide where I should go for my morning cuppa. I ended up choosing a fairly la-di-da place called Monmouth. It's one of those 100% ethical, fair trade places but the real attraction for me was that the line of customers extended right out the door. Whatever they were selling, I had to be part of it. The coffee was good - it started my heart, but I can't say it changed my life.

Feeling energised by 100% ethical caffeine, I proceeded to get completely lost amidst the sights and smells in this place, and this time I didn't mind a bit. I did a couple of laps of the Market for reconnaissance purposes, and quickly realised that my shopping bags would simply not accommodate all the goodies I wanted to buy. So I used today's shopping trip as a chance to replenish my stocks of hummus, carrot sticks and fruits - with a delicious French baguette, some figs and gorgonzola cheese thrown in for kicks. The flirty cheesemaker did wonders for my self-confidence, I can assure you.

The highlight of my visit this morning was finding Maria's Market Cafe in the Jubilee section of the Market. On his TV show, Jamie Oliver commented on Maria and how her little cafe serves, in his opinion, the best bubble and squeak in London. Known locally as "bubble", Maria's version is not at all pretty to look at, but he raved about it's crunchy texture and delicious taste. I simply had to try it for myself. I found Maria's place without a problem - it was like I had inbuilt GPS for food or something! I ordered an "egg, bacon and bubble bap" (a bap is just a bread roll). Squirting brown (HP) sauce on top, I stuffed the breakfast in and it was well worth it. Sure it was like eating 100% grease - I think the napkin was the healthiest part - but I am so glad I tried it. I can now say I've tried an authentic - dare I suggest famous - London dish! Yummo!

Me, Adam. You, Jane.

I remember being addicted to the Nescafe coffee commercials that screened in Australia in the mid-late 1990s. You remember the ones - it was like a long, drawn out soap opera and the whole country followed the relationship between the two central characters. The storyline bubbled along for way longer than it should have but nobody cared because it was a great idea.

So it's little wonder that I have become equally glued to the British Telecom (BT) commercials starring the fictional characters, Adam and Jane. It doesn't hurt that Adam is played by the adorable Kris Marshall, who you may remember from "Love Actually" (he played Colin, the enthusiastic fellow who decides to leave England and head to Wisconsin to get laid...and does, in rather spectacular fashion).

Anyway the BT commercial/serial has actually been screening since 2005 so I'm coming into things quite late. But the most recent storyline suggests that Jane may actually be pregnant, and the marketing gurus over at BT have turned it over to the British public to vote and decide where things go from here. You can view the ad for yourself here:

BT's Adam & Jane – what happens next? You decide.

So of course I voted.

I know, I know - I'm cringing in shame, but my fondness for commercial/serials is exceeded only by my love for Kris Marshall, so what choice did I have?! Naturally I voted for Jane to be with child.

Hey, I may be a loser, but at least I'm a romantic loser.

Feeling the strain

bridget
Originally uploaded by portobellospy_version2.

I am going through a fat phase.

Actually to be fair it's one of those in-between phases, where you've been fat and then you're losing weight. You're not back to your goal weight yet, so you linger in this awkward in-between phase where nothing in your closet fits like it's supposed to, and yet you don't want to go out and buy a whole new 'fat' wardrobe to see you through.

Everything I try on in my usual size is too tight, and because no UK clothing stores seem to be air-conditioned, everything I try in a size larger than normal seems to cling to me too. It's all so demoralising and frustrating.

Even the cute leather ballet flats I bought last weekend are too tight for me, but I swear they fit when I bought them. It seems my fat feet are too big for a size 4, and too small for a size 5. Do they make a 4.5 - nope (well at least not in the stores I've been frequenting).

The more I walk the streets (so to speak!) and the more often I go up and down the staircases at work, I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm eating well, drinking lots of water (more water than wine anyway), and so that has to be helping too. It's just so demoralising not to be able to slip into the cute summer outfits I see other girls wearing - though admittedly some girls have shoe-horned themselves into cute summer outfits, and kudos to them for their body confidence.

It probably comes as little surprise that when I start to get like this, my thoughts turn to the consolation of wine. A previous boss once suggested to me that the solution to all of life's problems could be found at the bottom of the bottle. Not the most rousing of motivational speeches perhaps, but it has stuck with me and is particularly timely because I've started looking for a London-based wine club to join.

I found a wine bar in my area called "Artisan & Vine" which I visited tonight and very much enjoyed (the Austrian rose on the recommended list was very tasty). Walking distance from home, it is a very convenient spot to enjoy a glass of wine from the extensive menu (plus they are also a wine retailer which is a bit of a bonus). But I thought it would be fun to look for a wine store that offers classes too, and fortunately I found two work colleagues/kindred spirits who are likewise inclined, so at least I will have some company.

In the mean time, I just have to steer clear of the mu-mu aisle in the department store and know that just like a good wine, my body image will improve with equal parts time and patience.

The Tale of the (almost) 12-Hour Tourist

I have had a HUGE day playing tourist, taking a bus tour to Oxford, The Cotswolds and Stratford-Upon-Avon. The bus departed London Victoria just before 9am, and dropped us back there again at 7.15pm - it was a mammoth day.

The good thing for me is that the train to Victoria leaves from Clapham Junction, the same train station I use every day. I set my alarm to wake me up as if today were a work day so even though a 7am Saturday is ugly at the best of times, I was prepared for it and so it was okay. I think the promise of train station coffee got me through (it's Illy coffee, which we have back home, so that helped).

London Victoria at 8am on a Saturday was pretty crowded, as I'm sure it is on most days really. The station is serviced by rail, the Tube and coach buses, so it's pretty intense. I had Google Mapped where I needed to be, and felt pretty confident that I'd find the bus departure gate, which I did - no problems. Good start. I also remembered to bring my ticket with me - even better!

All checked in, I waited in the queue for the bus and guide to arrive. Queuing proved to be a challenging concept for some of my fellow bus trippers. They had already begun to push and shove, with one rather rotund lady and her whippet-thin husband deciding they were bored with our queue, and they started their own. I regretted finishing my coffee so quickly.

Shepherding us on the bus, we were alerted to a woman and her husband running right for us, scared we'd leave without them. By now we'd all settled into our seats and Mr & Mrs Latecomer started to have a combined panic attack that they wouldn't be allowed to sit together. Inside, I steadfastly refused to budge and when the guide asked me (at full volume), "Are you travelling alone?!", I replied in the affirmative and said nothing more. My eyes dared her to ask me to move. She backed off. We were going to get along fine.

With Mr & Mrs Latecomer shoved down the back of the coach (somewhere near the toilet presumably), we set off for Oxford. The guide prattled on about complete nonsense the whole drive out of the City center, but I was just enjoying the view as we drove past Harvey Nichols (oops, Harvey Nicks), then along past Harrod's (hey, been there!) and along the residential streets of the well-to-do areas. The soothing voice of the guide, and the promise of a day where I wouldn't have to think or be stressed, lulled me into relaxed mode very quickly.

OXFORD

Our first stop on the day's program was Oxford and our only stop there was Christ Church College & Cathedral.

Heading up the stairs into the famed Great Hall, things descended rapidly into a pushing and shoving match. People were desperately trying to photograph the portraits around the wall, nobody having a clue who was in them or what significance their portrait might carry. I recognised The Great Hall from the "Harry Potter" movie - though they only briefly filmed here. Filming got expensive and disruptive rather quickly, so the College booted the film crew out and they had to build a Great Hall replica on a sound stage someplace else. I stayed in the room long enough to snap that photo and then I scurried under a barrier and got the hell out of there - through the same entrance I used to come in. No sense of crowd control here. None.

As we were coming into the Christ Church, our tour guide had given us a great little Guide to the College and Cathedral that detailed all the gorgeous architecture, stonework and stained glass that we would encounter along the halls. You know what? I hardly saw any of it. I was jostled from start to finish by hundreds - and I mean literally hundreds - of Italian school students. The place was crawling with them and they jostled and shouted and then stopped dead in their tracks and generally caused me a great deal of grief. I sat down in the Latin Chapel inside the Christ Church, to flick through the Guide we'd been given, but honestly I just wanted to hide from the ragazzi.

I left the Christ Church after that, having completely lost my tour group (and almost my mind). I emerged onto the streets of Oxford with no map, and no clue how to find the meeting point we'd agreed on. Naturally I headed left when I should have gone right, but it all ended well as I had plenty of time to get to the tourist office, seek directions, and buy a gelato on my way to the pick-up point. I even remembered to find some postcards for my Grandmas too.

THE COTSWOLDS

I now realise that when someone refers to The Cotswolds, they're referring to a place like The Hamptons or The Cinque Terre - it's not a single place, but a region or an area. The tour description online said that we would be going to The Cotswolds for lunch, which you could pre-book, or else you could opt for a lunch-on-your-own thing. Guess which one I picked?! As it turned out, the tour company had made the decision for us and we had been booked for lunch at some middle-of-nowhere place called The Duke of Marlborough pub.

Don't get me wrong it was a nice place and all, but it was effectively on a main road leaving us no options but to cough up 10GBP for bangers & mash and all eat together like a big happy bus family. I was not a happy camper, despite the gorgeous landscape - which is still owned by the current Duke of Malborough (a real person, who is about 80-something years old. And happily married).

I wish there was more to say about our trip to The Cotswolds, but this was literally all we experienced. The rest of our sightseeting was done from the bus, looking out at the gorgeous thatched-roofed houses and quaint little villages that I desperately wanted to walk through. Oh well, I guess I will just have to come back.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

En route to Stratford-Upon-Avon, we stopped off in Shottery to walk through Anne Hathaway's cottage. Anne married Shakespeare when she was 26 and he was just 18, which must have been quite a scandal in those days.

The cottage is a gorgeous example of Tudor architecture and we discovered that 13 generations of the Hathaway family have lived in that house. The last lot of relatives moved out of there only in 1911, which is an amazing bit of family history, don't you think?

The cottage garden is also very impressive, having been maintained pretty much as it would have been in the times. The garden is rich in flowers and plants, as you can see from the photo, but many of the vegetables are species that date back to the 1600s - it's incredible that they've been so well cared for.

The gift shop was also particularly impressive, and I thought it was very appropriate that I buy a copy of "Shakespeare's Wife" by Germaine Greer - a bit of serious reading material never hurt anybody, and it's nice to say where I bought it.

Back on the bus we went, off to see Anne's hubby's home town of Stratford-Upon-Avon, about a mile from the Hathaway house.

The Shakespeare Centre reminded me very much of The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr was shot. Weird connection to make, I know. But the fancy new Centre entrance sits right alongside - and is even a part of - the original Tudor property that Shakespeare and his family occupied. In this way it's like the Lorraine Hotel that has been consumed by the new Civil Rights Museum. Neither is particularly distasteful, but both strike me as very unusual tributes to their subjects.

I did not find anything remarkable about Shakespeare's birthplace, I have to say. I did enjoy the lecture that a British tourist gave to a trio of giggly Italian girls when they tried to photograph a bedroom in the house, thereby "defacing a piece of my culture" (or so sayeth the British woman). That pleased me very much indeed.

I took off into Henley Street at that point (basically the High Street of Stratford-Upon-Avon) and tried not to vomit at all the tacky merchandise with Shakepeare's likeness glued onto it. I did find a lovely bookshop with the usual plays and bios and stuff in it, but I bought a book by Bob Smith called "Hamlet's Dresser" which is the story of his life and how he came to love Shakespeare. As with the Greer book, I figured it would make a nice story about when and where I was when I bought it.

By this stage I was almost dead on my feet, and had given up stressing about ignoring tourists and pushy-shovey bus passengers. On the way back to London I even slept a bit, though with a typically paranoid white-knuckle grip on my handbag and purchases.

We all pushed and shoved to get off the bus at Victoria and I was really pleased to power walk through the station to my train home, but hoping to find a bottle of red wine somewhere in the rack - I figured I had certainly earned it.

No grey elephants, balancing...

Piquant
Originally uploaded by Miss Gab.

When I first came to London I was walking through Piccadilly Circus, dodging crowds and trying not to get in the way, when I encountered some giant fibreglass elephants painted in amazing designs and colours.

I had seen something similar before in Chicago, though these had been fibreglass cows that were auctioned off and raised a lot of money for charity. Small replicas were then sold at major tourist shops around town. It turns out that these elephants were a very similar idea.

The giant elephants of Elephant Parade were installed at various points around town and then auctioned off (for loads of cash) a few weeks ago at a charity event for Chelsea Hospital. One of my colleagues went along and said the elephants were just gorgeous and she had been sorely tempted to bid on the Australian-themed elephant, which ended up selling for over 20,000 pounds!

Sure enough as a follow-up money spinner from that event, collector pieces were created from some of the major pieces and these were being sold at an event I attended tonight. My colleague was automatically invited to the event, having been to the major charity auction, and I tagged along with her. I was disappointed to learn that the Aussie entry had not been replicated, though I suspect that's because it was a bit too ornate - the original was covered with those collector-item spoons that you used to collect from tourist spots - they came from all over Australia; it was amazing!. Anyway, only 5 replicas of each chosen design were created, and these copies stand 75cm tall, so while they are nowhere near the size of the original, they're still pretty impressive pieces. The replica elephants were being sold at a set price - upwards of 1,900 pounds - so not exactly peanuts (ha elephants, peanuts - ha!) but the detail in them is still great and all funds raised goes towards Elephant Family in its campaign to save endangered Asian elephants.

Naturally I did not purchase an elephant, but I did take photos of the ones I liked and you can view them by clicking here. Under each photo I also listed the artist and the asking price (because I'm sure you could email a bid through if you really wanted to!).

Alternatively you can view the professional photos of the full range of large elephants that were painted and auctioned by clicking here.

Mistress of her domain

Brief - but enthusiastic - shout out to Courts, who has taken the big leap of faith into buying her own domain name to host her great website, Coco Cooks.

No longer a slave to the amateur land of Blogger (like yours truly), Coco has stepped up and redesigned her site and the results are really impressive. You need to check it out!

Just a word of warning before you visit though, Coco Cooks should not be read on an empty stomach!

Bon Appetit (and well done, Courts)!

Yeo-ho-ho, off to the Tower with ye!

Tower of London visit
Originally uploaded by Miss Gab.

Last night I had the very real privilege of observing a ceremony that not too many visitors to London get to see, but one that has been performed in the same way, at the same time, every night for more than 700 years.

The Ceremony of the Keys takes place at the Tower of London at 10pm sharp, and it is a wonderful ritual where all the gates of the Tower are locked up, and the keys are returned to the Tower Governor for safekeeping overnight.

The ceremony is carried out by the Yeoman Warders, or 'Beefeaters' as they are sometimes known (though not to their faces). There are about 35 Yeomen Warders serving at the Tower now, and they live onsite with their families. To be a Yeoman Warder, you have to be a veteran of the UK armed services, having served with distinction for more than 22 years.

I was a guest of the Yeoman Warders last night and having met a number of them before the Ceremony, and afterwards at drinks in their Club, I can assure you that they are dedicated, proud bunch with a deep love of their country and their job.

I did not get the chance to look at the Tower of London itself, however that is definitely a job for another time. Part of my tour last night did explain the history of the Tower; it gave some gruesome details about the public executions held there (including some of the more famous prisoners such as Oliver Cromwell; Thomas More; and Anne Boelyn). We walked through the chapel where many of the bodies were buried - some with their heads, some without! Eerie stuff.

It did not occur to me until much later to ask about ghosts or hauntings at the Tower. I read about those stories online today and figured it would not be the sort of place I'd like to hang out after dark - even WITH the protection of the burly Yeomans.

The Tower of London is still classified an Historic Royal Palace, meaning that if Queen Elizabeth II decided that she wanted to move back in there tomorrow, she could. Chances are that won't happen of course, and it's just as well because it would mean ousting the Yeoman Warders, the Governor, the Doctor, and whichever country's army is visiting at the time.

I really enjoyed my visit to the Tower of London site and particularly the rare opportunity to witness the Ceremony of the Keys. On reflection the pomp and ceremony is all a bit fluffy but when you're watching it, in such imposing scenery on a grey, blustery London evening, it's hard not to be just a little impressed with the show.

On a high....street, that is

Keep Calm & Carry On Shopping Tote Bag
Originally uploaded by mooosh ♥ miso funky.

What a day! This has been a super sunny Saturday and I've enjoyed it by single-handedly helping to keep the British economy afloat.

I woke up early today, owing to the fact that in summer time here it gets bright at about 4.30am. By 7am I was wide awake, and starting to get really warm so I knew it was going to be a gorgeous day.

The only commitment today that I knew I had was a hair salon appointment at 2pm; otherwise, I was fancy free. I headed out at around 11am and walked up to the High Street. It's not called "High Street" though; rather, that just seems to be what an area's main shopping street is called here [FYI, the High Street in this 'hood is actually called St John's Road].

Up and down I went, in and out of stores, spending cash as I went. I called into Clark's and bought two pairs of black leather ballet flats (one matte, one patent). The Pakistani shop assistant helpfully suggested I should buy heels because I am so short, which he thought was terribly amusing. I replied that after a day spent in heels in this city, he'd have to carry me everywhere I wanted to go. Wiped the smile right off his face, ha! Fortunately we both laughed.

A few doors away is a great little place called "Recipease", a Jamie Oliver place. I suspect he must own it, because it's chock-full of his products, ready-made meals and even a test kitchen down the back where they run cooking classes. I am thinking about doing one, because they look really good. There are some longer courses like knife skills, which goes for 4 weeks but is a bit serious; and then there are one-off classes like a pasta one or a green chicken curry one, where you focus on preparing just one meal and eat it at the end. There are about 8 stations in the kitchen, so the classes would be pretty good and I thought a nice way to meet people. The students I saw in today's class (the pasta one) didn't seem to know each other, or at least they weren't talking to each other - so it's hard to tell, as nobody seems to talk to anybody else in London.

But I digress.

I stopped at the 3 store and got myself on a 12-month plan, which I'd been meaning to do for ages as the pay-as-you-go thing was costing me a fortune. I will have a different phone number until Monday (apologies in advance for any confusion that causes), but then I will get to switch my phone number back to the old one and order will once again be restored.

I called into the charity shop and bought a top and two trashy novels to do my bit for cancer research, then I turned left from the High Street onto Battersea Rise, and found my hairdressing salon, entirely on time for my appointment.

I was a bit nervous going to the hairdresser for the first time, to be honest. My regrowth is so bad right now it's a miracle I have the confidence to leave the house at all. Still, with all the shopping I did today, I can't really afford to get my roots done until next pay day - not properly anyway - so I decided just to have a cut. My hair is only short, but it's dead straight which doesn't leave a lot of room for imaginative styling. Still, the instant my hairdresser and I saw each other, we fell in love. He is so lovely and we chatted for ages about everything, me rambling away about nothing and he spritzing and snipping. He is not from London - rather, a small town somewhere about 2 hours' drive north of here - and he lives walking distance from the salon and really loves the area. His girlfriend is studying to be a ballerina and so as a result he gets dragged along to a bunch of live theatre and dance productions, including in the Royal Opera House, which I haven't been to yet. Turns out his girlfriend is going to live at her ballet school, so he'll be looking for a room mate soon (around the same time as me). He even suggested we could live together - but I chose to think he was joking. Or was he? Thinking about it, there has to be advantages to living with a hairdresser, right? Especially a straight, clean and self-sufficient one who knows how to cook and gets along well with his family? Yep, I can see it now - we're going to be best friends. I will reassess this situation in a few weeks' time when I go back to get my hair colour done - more news to follow.

So much adventure on the High Street today, no wonder I'm ready for a nanna nap!

Lilies on Leicester

I took an intentional detour this afternoon to walk back through Trafalgar Square en route to the theatres in Leicester Square. I really like Trafalgar Square; I like the immensity of it and the way that even though it's essentially concrete, a fountain, an obelisk and a couple of lions, the space is really impressive. Even crawling with tourists, as it was tonight (a swarm of them dressed in fluoro green tshirts no less), I still enjoyed it.

Skirting around in behind the The National Gallery, I took my detour up to Leicester Square and all of a sudden found myself faced with bollards and bobbies blocking my path doing crazier-than-normal crowd control. What gives?! So I did what any self-respecting lady about town would do. I allowed myself to be pushed and shoved into a cute little hotel bar just on the outskirts of the Square. Hoisting myself up onto the barstool, I ordered a french martini from the barman and asked him what was going on. Leo DiCaprio, he tells me. Movie premiere, he says. Oh great, okay - so "Inception" was premiering in London tonight. Just as my cocktail arrived, the crowd outside starting screaming and applauding, clickety-clacking their cameras to try and preserve all the hysteria. Safely inside, I sipped my drink in quiet solitude.

Dashing off just before 7pm, I took a forced detour this time - around the premiere crowds - and found my theatre not far away. I had some dinner at a pizza place across the road, sitting alone next to a table of an Australian family. As I was sitting there, trying to enjoy my linguine and a glass of Chianti Classico, I could feel the daughters at the next table staring at me. I was starting to feel really self conscious. They were blatantly staring, but not saying anything. Then the conversation at the next table went dead altogether, and I got really nervous. So I ate faster and tried to look anywhere but in their direction. Why was I getting so paranoid? I wasn't doing anything wrong! Ugh it horrible, but the pasta and wine not; that was just fine.

The play I went to see was called Lilies on the Land and it was the story of four women who were members of the Women's Land Army in England during WW2. I bought a ticket for 12 pounds (normally 35 pounds) from the Time Out website, purely because the reviews were so good. I really enjoyed the show, and was entertained from start to finish. The stories came from real-life letters and diaries from women who had really been in the WLA and so I think that really helped the story to ring true.

Getting home is a lot like auto pilot these days, particularly when I've been out all day. I had no trouble at all trudging through the Tube to Waterloo and switching for the train home. Then the man at the baguette store sold me 2 Diet Cokes for the price of 1, and my day was complete.

Well, there you are!

Leicester Square, Tube, London
Originally uploaded by greenwood100.

If you've been keeping up with the blog over the last couple of weeks, you'll know that I am directionally-challenged. And you'll also appreciate what kind of understatement that last sentence was. Tonight though, I really feel like I turned a corner. The right corner.

I set off from work with the intention of going to see "Shrek 3D" at the cinema in Leicester Square, about 15 minutes walk from my office, and I wanted to walk through Covent Garden to get there. In itself this was a very ambitious agenda for me, but I was determined to get it right.

Turning off Aldwych into Drury Lane (with no sign of The Muffin Man), I turned left at Long Acre and sensibly bypassed the crowds of the Covent Garden piazza in favour of the nearby fashion shops and cafes. No less crowded of course, but much more window shopping variety - particularly for somebody in desperate need of some new leather ballet flats.

At this point I turned left into Upper St Martin's Lane, knowing that Leicester Square and the cinema was somewhere around there. I dodged pamphlet wavers, and some woman that wanted me to save the children/rainforests/lemurs/whatever, and tried to look like I knew where I was going.

Shock of shocks, I actually turned the right way at the traffic lights and voila - Leicester Square proper, and the cinema facing right out onto it. Genius! Sadly the session of "Shrek 3D" that I wanted to see was almost sold out, so I decided to go another time. I wandered down a couple of cobbled side streets, not really walking anywhere in particular - just looking to explore the immediate surrounds and see what diversions I could find there.

In the distance I saw Gaby's Cafe which I had only just been reading about on the Time Out London website. It's such a dive place, but it's a NY-style Jewish deli and its food got a great review. Sure I was eating dinner alone - and before 6pm - but I figured that my chances of finding the cafe again were pretty slim, so I had to seize the moment. I was not disappointed at all. I chose the falafel which are home made and came jam-packed into a pita pocket with salad and loads of hummus slathered on top. Washed down with a Diet Coke, it made for a very satisfying, cheap and cheerful meal.

From Leicester Square station I took the Northern Line south to Waterloo (where Napoleon did surrender). Switching to my train home, I spent the commute trying really hard not to marvel at my good fortunes, lest I jinx myself good and proper.

Let's just hope that this successful adventure is the sign of really good things to come.

Does lemon sorbet contain ibuprofen?

I am only a little over 3 weeks into this whole overseas experience and already I want to torch every item of clothing I so carefully packed into the 20kg of checked luggage that Singapore Airlines let me bring over here. I've even bought a couple of tops since I arrived, and I'd be happy to set them alight too now that I think about it.

I'm sensing quite a theme actually because I went shopping tonight for a couple of wardrobe staples and the common adjective I can use to describe the clothes I looked at is FLAMMABLE. I just can't find the store with the cute tops; or the one that makes the great work dresses; or the one with all the jewellery I like. Every store I go into resembles a jumble sale, and women turn into raving lunatic harpies, clawing at items of clothing as if their very lives depending on them. The clothes they don't want, they abandon on racks or else just drop them where they stand and step over them. Shopping the chain stores in London has been, in short, a demoralising experience.

Groceries have been easier though - or so I thought. Around the corner from my place is a store called LIDL (England's answer to ALDI in Scotland and the US). It's dirt cheap and 90% of the product labels are in languages other than English, but the store is close and it's easy to get the basics there. I approached the store tonight and was not really thinking about much, other than what I might buy. I nearly walked head-long into the exit doors. Oops, my bad. So I walked around the other side of the store, thinking the entrance might be around there. Nope. I had no idea how to even get into the store! This was not starting out well at all. I could have just given up and walked up the hill to ASDA but (a) I was not going to give up; and (b) boo to going up hills. There were people inside LIDL, indeed there were people coming out of LIDL. How the hell did they all get in there? I followed a man and his wife a little further along the building (while they both no doubt got on their mobiles and called the cops), and I ever-so-casually walked through the entrance. Nobody inside LIDL was any the wiser, which was just as well.

By this stage all I could think about getting out again - as it turns out, not shopping is much more exhausting than shopping, I think. So I grabbed raisin bread, yoghurt, some dehydrated pasta thing from Finland and some lemon sorbet (the latter always makes me feel better just for having bought it). Then cool as the proverbial cucumber, I sauntered out the exit - because I knew where that one was!

Enclosed at Henley

My flatmate and her friends invited me to accompany them on Saturday afternoon to the Henley Royal Regatta 2010, which is apparently one of THE events of the London summer season.

My flatmate is traditionally the coordinator of the big trip to Henley and in that capacity, she arranges the transport and refreshments and all we have to do is kick in the cash. This was my flatmate’s 7th year of Henley, so she’s well-practiced in terms of organising. The night before the big event, I helped shop for provisions; I have never seen so much party food go into one trolley! But then again we were feeding 21 people, so I just helped load up supplies and help cater for everyone – carnivores and vegans alike!

Early Saturday morning we were up, emptying the fridge into a number of cooler bags and eskies so they could be transported more easily. It was quite an exercise and clearly my flatmate was very good at Tetris at one stage in her life – everything was very well packed!

It was at this point that the day threatened to head south, because we had engaged the services of a transport company that was headed up by a charlatan. The man had told my flatmate that he had a bus that could easily transport 21 of us to and from Henley but unbeknownst to us, he had lied. So there we were, half of our party at one pick-up point and half at another, waiting for a coach bus that did not exist. I was starting to get irritated but my flatmate remained calm and swung into fix-it mode, negotiating with the transport company to arrange a back up plan: a 4-sedan convoy. Each driver that we had was more irritated than the last – lack of communication, general job dissatisfaction, it was all over the place and we were stuck in the middle of it, almost an hour behind schedule.

Ultimately we made it to Henley though and unpacked the cars, reuniting inside the Courtyard Enclosure at Remenham Farm, a gated little oasis very close to the starting line of the whole event. The Henley Royal Regatta actually stretches over two days – Saturday is traditionally the party day while the final serious race is held on Sunday. Our tickets were just for the Saturday (of course!) and the ticket price included a table just inside the marquee, a glass of champagne on arrival, a ticket for the hog roast (which I assume was a pig on a spit, though I did not actually see it), and all the musical entertainment you could handle. It was fantastic value for money.

We had a lot of food and wine of course, but danced it all off throughout the afternoon. We even managed to take in the Germany/Argentina match on the big screens at some point during the afternoon so it was a great day out. Plus best of all, the sun shone the entire day which made it all so much better. I met a bunch of English people who were telling me how unreliable the weather can be and how perfect the 2010 weather was, so it seems I had the perfect first Regatta experience!

Getting home was a bit of a nightmare though, I have to admit. After a day of fun in the sun, we packed up the leftovers and headed out to meet our transport, but hadn’t counted on just how slow and miserable the traffic would be. We had arranged a 10.30pm meet up time with our cars, but I didn’t get into mine until nearly midnight, by which time I was almost falling asleep where I stood. Fortunately the weather held out and it was a cool, crisp evening. I perched myself on top of one of the eskies and just waited for the car to find me. I think I fell asleep in the car on the way home, which is a bit of a surprise given that we were speeding the whole way and almost airborne at some points. One of the girls in the car had to tell the driver to slow down – perhaps he was just as anxious to get home as we were.

Falling into bed at 2am, I slept like the dead until 11am the next morning, and didn’t move much farther than the couch all day Sunday, arising only to munch some leftovers and then resume the reclining position. Blissful.

When smoking may actually be good for you

London has no ventilation.

To people living here, the above statement comes as no surprise whatsoever. It appears that Londoners are deathly afraid of fresh air and they don't even want to think about what might happen if you start up an air conditioner! I am assuming all this of course, without any shred of evidence beyond my own personal experience. But what other excuse could there possibly be for the sweaty, steamy and generally miserable experience of catching public transportation in London during summer? There is just no air - not on the Tube, not on the buses and certainly not on the trains.

As a by-product of this of course, people stink. I'm sure some people stink all the time, but this is exceptionally pronounced in the absence of ventilation. I was almost overcome by the stench of a woman's armpits - a woman's no less! - when she wedged herself in the two square inches of personal space I had left on the train tonight. Somewhat involuntarily (and only fleetingly), I screwed up my nose as the fetid stench hit my nostrils. She didn't indicate if she'd noticed.

And then what happens is I get paranoid. Do I smell? Or have I absorbed your body odour, in the same way that cigarette smoke seems to bury itself into hair and skin? Either way I can't handle it. So I discretely try and smell myself and end up looking like a big pervert. But STILL people squish on the train and get their armpits all up in my business.

Maybe I should just take up smoking - clove cigarettes, I mean - or something equally sophisticated. Smelling like that has to be better than the current alternative, right? Yuck.

I'm not alone, I'm with Muriel

Tonight I took myself on a date. And not just any date either; one of the good ones! Tonight I actually treated myself to dinner and a show!

Through the Time Out London magazine's website I scored a half-price ticket to see a creepy ghost story play called "The Woman in Black", about which I had already heard a great deal. I don't get too upset about seeing movies or going to the theatre on my own, because I figure that by the time the show starts you're sitting in the dark, so who can see you?

I'm still getting used to the idea of going to dinner on my own though. I always wonder whether people at adjoining tables are wondering if I've been stood up, or if I'm just exceptionally boring and nobody wants to eat with me. I find myself dreaming up storylines about friends I was supposed to meet, only they bailed at the last minute and I didn't want to lose the reservation...oh the fantasies get nuttier and nuttier - and I never have to say them aloud anyway. But tonight the play I was seeing didn't start until 8pm, so I had to think about dining alone and wondering what excuse (if any) I might use to explain my friendlessness.

I figured I would treat myself to a nice pre-theatre dinner in Covent Garden, where there are always so many people that nobody was likely to notice somebody on their own. I had done a bit of Google Mapping beforehand, which we know has had mixed results in the past. But this time I found the restaurant first pop (my stomach must have led the way)! Maxwell's Bar & Grill is not a high-brow establishment in any sense, but it's location cannot be beaten. It faces right out onto the Covent Garden piazza and has alfresco tables so you can watch the world go by. Flying solo, I wasn't really in the mood for visibility, so I requested a table in some dark, dingy corner so I could people watch from the shadows. My flirty waiter brought over the French martini that I'd ordered, only leaving me in peace once I'd declared the cocktail delicious. He returned periodically to wink and flirt, at least I think he was flirting - I was having trouble understanding his very thick Irish accent. So I did a lot of nodding and "uh-huh"ing - which on reflection is probably the very WRONG thing to be doing if you can't understand someone. Hmm.

The two-course, prix fixe meal of herbed chicken & garlic mash with a dessert of spotted date pudding was delicious but I knew that if I had that second French martini (happy hour or no), I'd settle in for the night and miss my show. No chance of that, thank you.

So I emerged into the Covent Garden Piazza, dodging people and pigeons and some crazy pamphlet-wielding evangelist trying to recruit me to his plethora of crusades. Denied. I headed downstairs to the delightfully named Crusting Pipe Wine Bar. Underground as it is, the whole bar has a sort of mysterious, hidden-away quality that I quite liked. But it is also quite dank and has an unfamiliar odour about it that I wasn't so crash hot on. I also found the Sancerre Rose rather unsatisfactory, but that was hardly the bar's fault. By now though, we were getting close to curtain-raising time and I had to head out.

The production of "The Woman in Black" was really great and I was in the third row from the front, so I had a perfect view. I think that's the bonus of going to the theatre on your own - it's much easier to find a great solo seat, particularly at the last minute. The foyer of the theatre had a bunch of brochures for current and upcoming productions too. There is one with Joanna Lumley (Patsy on "Ab Fab") and David Hyde Pierce (Niles from "Frasier") that I desperately need to see. I wonder if Time Out magazine will help me with a discount on that one, plus the two hundred other shows I want to see?!

Happy Accidents

Green Compass Macro
Originally uploaded by Red Canoe Cacher.

I'm really glad that I arrived in London during summer. Understatement of the century.

The fact that I have ZERO sense of direction means I am constantly getting lost. Doing so hardly seems so bad, when the weather is so nice and it's light until 10pm. But I'm starting to make such an alarming habit of wandering in entirely the wrong directions that I'm starting to worry myself. Maybe my office's suggestion of fitting me with a radio transmitter wasn't such a dumb idea after all?

Fortunately I have the Tube sussed out. I may not be on the most favourable of tube lines for my ultimate destination, but at least I know how to navigate the underground system so I know how to get myself to where I need to be. It's when I emerge ABOVEGROUND that things get ugly.

I got caught up in peak hour crowds at Waterloo Station this morning and ended up being forced out of an unfamiliar exit, facing a carpark I'd never seen before. Where was my bus stop?! Rather than make it easy on myself and go back how I came in, I thought I'd be smart and avoid the crowds by walking AROUND the perimeter of the station. In the wrong direction. Naturally. So I ended up in a complete foreign area, and ultimately came to my senses and went back inside the station until I got my bearings and found the exit I needed.

Not a good start to the day, I feel. But if I thought that effort was ordinary, tonight was an even bigger balls up. Dare I say I may even have outdone myself?

I stood at a bus stop by my office, fully intending to shop at Oxford Circus (why I do this to myself will forever remain a mystery). According to MY reading of the route, I could take about 4 buses that came along. I felt cool, up with it, ready to ride a double decker bus towards public transportation system mastery.

Unfortunately it appears that you can take any bus that comes along EXCEPT the bus I ultimately caught. Figures. If you're interested, the bus I actually caught takes you on a lovely ride through Piccadilly Circus, down towards Wellington's Arch and then almost to the doorstep of Harrod's.

I was so disheartened at this point I decided to get off and wander through Harrod's. Can I just say that browsing the 60% off racks in the women's wear section, when everything on there is STILL over 200 pounds a garment, is no way to cheer up!!??

Things were going from bad to worse, so I rode the Egyptian Escalator up and down a few times - just because I thought it was pretty - and somehow emerged in the Harrod's Food Hall.

Talk about a silver lining!

Faced with so much choice, and a loudly growling belly, I prowled the aisles until I settled on some takeaway Indian food. The lovely man behind the counter gave it to me at 50% off, even though he hadn't put the discount signs on it. I was so happy I nearly cried.

And can you believe it - getting home was absolutely no problem at all! It's as if my bed and me share a weird, umbilical relationship or something. And summer won't last forever, so I really have to get better at this navigation stuff, or I'll be riding buses into Wales in no time!

It's elementary, my dear

UK - London - Marylebone: Sherlock Holmes Museum
Originally uploaded by wallyg.

Originally I was planning to spend my Sunday lying very still and not doing much at all. In the end, I forced myself to get off the bed and out into society - and I'm really glad I did.

Last weekend I bought a pack of cards and each card describes a walking tour of the City of London. Today I chose walk #27, "Bond Street to Baker Street". I have no idea why I chose that card over all the others; perhaps it really was the luck of the draw. In any case, the walk took me back to the neighbourhood I visited yesterday - Marylebone.

Getting off the tube at Bond Street, I turned entirely the wrong way (obviously) and got off to a pretty average start. Once I was back on course, I walked into Manchester Square and toured the "Beauty and Power" bronze exhibition at The Wallace Collection. The whole museum was really beautiful, if not a little stuffy, and I didn't stay too long in the end - I even resisted the icecream van set up outside the museum!

Given that I'd walked up & down Marylebone High Street only just yesterday, I skipped that bit of the walking card and cut down George Street over to Baker Street. Grabbing a takeaway Subway sandwich for lunch, I slopped BBQ sauce down the front of my white tshirt - naturally - and then succumbed to a walloping bad mood. The only thing that buoyed my spirits was the promise of browsing Sherlock Holmes memorabilia just a little further up the road. What I hadn't counted on (and perhaps should have) was the sheer number of people with similar plans to my own.

The Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street is not the most remarkable of buildings; in fact it's quite pokey and not at all ventilated. Fortunately the exhibits are spread out in about 6 little rooms so it's quite easy to just zip through each one and have a little look. I have not read any Sherlock Holmes stories, so the displays and references in each room were a little lost on me. I did pick up a book of Sherlock Holmes stories in the gift shop though, a great little volume with gold-edges pages and hardcover, so I thought that made quite a lovely souvenir.

I stopped next door at The London Beatles Store for a bit of a browse but again, the store was simply not big enough to accommodate all the people that wanted to go through it. I was starting to get quite snappy at this stage - BBQ sauce on my shirt, desperate Diet Coke deprivation - you know the drill. So I gathered my wits and jumped back on the Tube, this time at the Baker Street stop, and headed for home.

I stopped at Oxford Circus and picked up some great bargains at Gap (yes, replacement tshirt was one of those bargains). By this time it was about 2.20pm, and I wanted to get to the pub before the England game started. I powered home, changed clothes, and walked back across the Vauxhall Bridge in the direction of The Grosvenor Pub in Pimlico.

Enough has already been said about England's 4-1 loss to Germany, so I'm not going to add anything about it here. It was nice to hang around after the game though and get to know the locals as they wandered in and out. When I move to my new apartment next week, I'll be quite a distance from this particular pub, but it was nice to spend some time in it this afternoon.

Back to work tomorrow of course, and the BBC suggests it's going to be another warm week. Sounds good to me - I'm lapping it up!

The jolly week that was

The end of another great week in London. Sightseeing wise, this has been a bit of a slow week actually. Largely my last 7 days have been spent getting stuck in to some work projects and then after hours, sorting out a place to live. Fortunately the latter has now been sorted and I move in on Tuesday. I can't tell you what a load off my mind it will be to have a bedroom of my own, a flat mate to chat to, and a safe place to unpack my luggage and hang up my clothes. Simple pleasures, really.

Thursday night we had a social event at work and I tended the bar. I know, right? But fortunately the drink prices were all fairly helpful (50p, 1 pound) so making change was easier than I'd first thought. Plus when you're behind the bar, the opportunities to meet people greatly increase. So I got to chat to a lot of people who work in my building, but sadly I found it difficult to concentrate on the person's name AND their drink order. Something had to give - next time I'm going to ask everyone to wear name tags!

Yesterday was a truly gorgeous day in the city and I left the apartment early to explore. I had to be at lunch with some old friends from back home at noon, and so I had some time to kill. I went into Covent Garden and looked around at the market, which was an assault on my senses. Tourists poured in from positively everywhere and the accents around me was like being in a UN meeting - just amazing. I didn't buy anything, but I certainly saw some tempting things - jewellery, clothing, souvenir trinkets and the like.

I caught the tube up to Bond Street and walked up into the Marylebone neighbourhood which was just gorgeous. The Marylebone High Street is a mecca of artisinal shops, chic boutiques, gastro pubs and wonderful restaurants and cafes. We had lunch at one such cafe called The Providores and Tapa Room Restaurant and it was excellent - particularly the delicious and very strong coffee (thanks to the NZ chef, who clearly knows what he's doing). My friends left after lunch to attend a music concert in Hyde Park and I continued on my way, walking up and down the High Street at a leisurely place.

With no particular destination in mind, I boarded the Tube to Notting Hill Gate, simply deciding to walk around the neighbourhood and see what I could see. Coming up to street level I saw signs for Portobello Road Market and figured I should just follow the ever-expanding crowds and see what all the fuss was about.

If I ever (and I mean EVER) decide to go to Portobello Market on a sunny Saturday again, please smack me over the head with something very heavy. That experience was like hell on earth. The crowds made it impossible to get anywhere quickly, and the only way to make any progress was to walk in the middle of the road, meaning I couldn't see any of the market stalls anyway. I will return another time of course, because I do love a market atmosphere, but I will time things better next time. It serves me right for trying to browse at 3pm on a Saturday. I retreated into a nearby pub for a very cold (and very large) beer to recuperate from the rush. Delish.

Today is an equally beautiful day but I'm not so inclined to get out and explore. I am going to the pub later today to watch the England game - I seem to be a sucker for crowded environments these days, don't I? While I'm not a huge soccer fan by any stretch, it's important that I watch this game and cheer on England (well, somebody has to!). C'mon boys!!

Until next time x

A coupla cuppas

twinings earl grey tea
Originally uploaded by hwayoungjung.

Down the street from my office is the oldest Twinings store in London. I did not know this until AFTER I'd visited there of course, but nonetheless it's a nice piece of trivia that might be useful at a quiz night sometime soon.

I was actually walking back from grabbing a sandwich today and figured it would be nice to call into the Twinings store and get some peppermint tea.

Browsing the shelves at the sheer eye-popping number of herbal teas and fruit teas and whatnot, my attention was drawn to the big box of Twinings Traditional Afternoon tea, that has always been a firm favourite. I could hardly go past that!

Armed with my purchases, the shop assistant then tried to persuade me to adjourn to the tearoom at the back of the store for a complimentary mug of tea. What a lovely promotion! Sadly I had to get back to the office so I took a raincheck *SOB*

I tell you though, it's nice to know that such delicious - and free - tea is available only a block or so from work. That sure makes up for all the sub-par coffee joints close by. Here's cheers, I say!

Points A to B

London Routemaster Bus
Originally uploaded by DaveWilliams.

Call me crazy, but this morning I decided to catch the bus to work from Waterloo Station. One of my colleagues had told me where the bus stop was, and which buses to catch, so that left me rather little room to screw up really.

Against the backdrop of last week's pedestrian (mis)adventures, you would no doubt be as pleased as I was to learn that not only did I take the right bus, I got off at the right stop, and I was early for work! As they say in London, I was "well chuffed".

Bring on tomorrow's commute!

Who are the people in your neighbourhood?

Over the course of this week I have been looking for a place to live. Beyond web browsing, I've actually visited a few apartments across the City, trying to work out where I want to live - and with whom.

So far I haven't committed to anything, but I've enjoyed the opportunity to traverse the Tube map and learn a bit more about London's neighbourhoods by actively visiting them and meeting some of their residents.

The other night I did reconnaissance at Clapham Common, Friday night I was in Pimlico. On Saturday morning I was in Clapham today I visited Queen's Park and Whitechapel. Tomorrow is West Kensington and the day after that is Battersea. Phew - I'm gettin' around, let me tell you!

After finishing up at Whitechapel, I took the Tube to Oxford Circus to have a look around. Arguably the chain store shopping mecca of London, Oxford Circus is pretty much like Chicago's Michigan Avenue. At Christmas. Are you getting the picture? I wandered along Oxford Street, in and out of the stores, and then sought refuge at Marble Arch for a restorative Diet Coke and writing some postcards to my grandmas.

I walked back along the other side of Oxford Street this time, back to Oxford Circus tube station, and turned right to head down Regent Street. This is home to some pretty fancy-pants designer stores mixed up with souvenir shops but the best thing about Regent Street today was the fact that I was walking downhill! Bliss.

Through Piccadilly Circus I went, along to Leicester Square, where there was some sort of public gathering/street fair thing happening. I couldn't see through the crowd anyway, so i'm not sure what was going on but there were loads of kids and families and that was enough for me - I had to get out of there! By this stage I was starving and so I called into a cute Italian restaurant and enjoyed a pizza and red wine while I gathered my thoughts, referenced my maps, and plotted my next move.

Allowing the crowd to push me along, I soon found myself in Covent Garden and browsed some of the street stalls and market spaces. The sun had come out, everyone seemed really happy and relaxed and I was enjoying the afternoon until I realised that standing still only exacerbated my sore thighs and feet - time to keep moving.

Down Lancaster Place I went and across the - wait for it - WATERLOO BRIDGE! I found the stinkin' Waterloo Bridge and I hadn't even been looking for it. Glorious! With the Waterloo tube station in sight, I dawdled across the bridge, helping tourists take photos of themselves with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in the background.

Now that I'm back at my friend's place with my slippers on, the pace of the day is catching up with me and I know I'll sleep well tonight. After a day spent discovering some new nooks & crannies of this huge city, I'm looking forward to attacking the apartment-hunt with a renewed enthusiasm this week.

Reflections on the week that was

I made it to the end of my first work week in London and job-wise, I didn't achieve much. We have been having some computer issues, so my boss said that my first priority should be to find somewhere to live and to get myself settled. Easier said than done, my friends. I'm browsing 3 or 4 flat-sharing websites simultaneously, and friends are helping out with emailed recommendations, but it's a slow process. I need to remember that I've only been here a week though and just like Pantene, this "won't happen overnight but it will happen".

I have also been spending the latter part of the week on a friend's couch in an area of town called Bermondsey. It is a pretty spot, with parks and gardens dotted around and the place is well serviced by the tube and rail. That doesn't mean of course that I have had a smooth time getting to work. I'm still as geographically-challenged as ever. The dilemma comes when I emerge from the Tube at the giant Waterloo station and I get caught up in the crowds of fellow commuters, all zooming off in different directions. I am never sure which group to follow and as a result, I've taken a different walking route to work every day - none of them the correct one.

The security team at work laugh at me and every day they ask me what weird and wonderful route I took to work. Yesterday I was able to give them the traffic report from Westminster Bridge (walking towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament). Trust me when I tell you that this was WAAAY out of my way. At the same time, it's not surprising in the least. I have a terrible sense of direction but even I'm surprised at how easily I lose Waterloo Bridge. I mean, seriously. Waterloo Bridge itself is enormous, and the pedestrian-only bridge right next door is equally monstrous and yet I have managed to follow commuter crowds out of the station, down windy backstreets, and bypass both bridges entirely. Crazy. I guess my only saving grace at this point is that I'm always running ultra early for work every day, affording me some time to amble across foreign bridges and past some of the most beautiful monuments and architecture I've ever seen. Plus I'm also using the wandering as an excuse to locate coffee shops, hotels and cute restaurants that I might need to visit later on (if I can ever find them again).

I got my bank account organised the other day too. This proved to be much less painful than the experience in Scotland, where I recall we were effectively interrogated, cavity-searched, rigorously background checked and generally treated like criminals. Thanks to the recommendation from work of course, the process of opening my London account was very quick and easy. My closest bank branch is also located right behind St Paul's Cathedral, so I got to visit another gorgeous monument just by chance. Score! I didn't get to go inside St Paul's of course, but my colleague said that church services run as usual on Sundays so I could always go inside for free then. The ABC (Another Bloody Church) Tour has begun.

Some good news is that all the walking here is doing me good already. I didn't realise that I had thigh muscles until they started groaning and twinging around about Thursday. All this up & down stairs business at work and on the Tube, not to mention navigating the uneven terrain - cobble stones and such - I may actually be headed towards that mysterious thing they call fitness. Help.

So these are the sights?

Day 2 at work went pretty well. With permission from my boss, I spent much of the day browsing the internet looking for places to live, so that was quite good really. I have not really narrowed things down too much - I think I'll do a better job of that when I actually hit the streets and visit apartments, but so far I am using my desktop research to get better acquainted with the London geography.

I was on the tube this afternoon thinking back to my Chicago days and you know what occurred to me? I can't remember a time when I didn't know Chicago well. I know that Chicago was brand new to me 5 years ago, and I had to start from scratch and get myself around, but I've literally wiped all that experience from my brain. So having to learn London is a fresh challenge and one that I'm starting to enjoy.

My office uses a driving service on occasion and late yesterday I decided that it was all too traumatic to organise my own relocation to my friend's place (where I am presently couch-surfing). I just couldn't face two tube journeys with the two hefty suitcases all on my own. I wasn't being a baby about it; a fact's a fact. Plus I have no biceps to speak of and 30kg of luggage is coming close to killing me. So my boss approved booking the office driver to transport me and my bags to my friend's place after work today. Rock star.

Bless his cotton socks, Sam picked me up on time and helped heave my luggage into his car. Then he took the long way to my friend's place, passing a bunch of great London sights along the way. I got the full audio commentary tour too as we tootled past Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Waterloo Bridge, and the Tower of London - just to name a few! Can you believe it?! I was stoked. So far my whole experience of London has been underground. In Sam's car, listening to him tell me all about the history and architecture as our car hooned by, I actually felt really excited to come back to all these places on weekends to come and explore them for myself. If only I can find them all...

Zones and Tubes, Heels and Homes

I made it safely to London, after what was probably a 30-hour journey (I'm too scared to count). Both my flights were 100% full - and I'm quite surprised to say I actually got about 7 hours sleep en route to London, which wasn't too bad really.

Singapore's Changi airport was lovely and I had a delicious pad thai and a couple of beers while waiting for my connecting flight. I also enjoyed a complimentary foot & calf massage in one of those automatic machine thingies that I love. Of course there was a massage parlour (for want of a better expression) and I could have paid a human being to massage me, but given my strict 'no touch' policy, the chair was always the only choice!

When I finally arrived at Heathrow, the immigration & customs experiences were fairly uneventful. I breezed through actually - and I was really pleasant to everyone, which is a miracle given that I hadn't had any coffee whatsoever since Australia!

The tube from Heathrow to Bayswater was a bit of an adventure, simply because rather than reading the instructions on the tube ticket machine, I just started pushing buttons. What zone are you in? What zone are you going to? ARGH - menace. Anyway, I bought a ticket for zones I had no interest in going to, consequently overpaid for the ticket and then took a rather creative route to the tube station I actually needed. I was never actually lost per se, rather I was just over-complicating things and so ultimately the journey took longer than it had to. All good.

I had done some Googlemapping (from the verb to googlemap) before I got to London so I knew where my Bayswater hotel was, and in retrospect I was really grateful for that. I exited the Bayswater tube stop, turned left, walked a couple of blocks, turned right and VOILA. Hotel found. Also working in my favour at that point was the fact that hotel reception had a room available for me then and there, so I didn't even need to come back at the usual check-in time. I headed straight upstairs, took a lukewarm shower (hot is not an option at my hotel), and I got changed and headed straight back outside again. I did not even sit down on the bed, because I knew that if I did, I'd never get back up again.

Bayswater is a lovely neighbourhood - my hairdresser back at home used to live in London and he lived in this area for about 3 years and obviously loved it. Now that I'm here I can see why. There are plenty of coffee options, the houses/flats are gorgeous; the area is literally in the centre of things; and the shopping/food/entertainment precincts seem really great too. I just wish I could afford to live here...maybe I should look into that a little more closely now that I'm here....

I did a bit of shopping in Bayswater too, picking up some bathroom/toiletry essentials at the chemist and then I headed back to the tube station to rehearse my commute to work. That journey actually went very smoothly and I found my office in no time flat.

After this bit of reconnaissance, I walked down (or up?) The Strand and into Trafalgar Square. I paused for a cup of tea at the Square cafe, and watched the tourists and school kids take photos of each other and goof off around the fountains and Nelson's Column. It was a gorgeous day with some lovely sun, so I was quite spoiled rotten.

I wanted to call my family to let them know that I was doing so well (geographically I mean) and I stepped into a phone booth - and almost stepped ON some poo. Human poo. Or else it was from some giant animal like a rhino or something, but then how would a rhino open a phone booth door? Or more importantly, what would a rhino be doing in Central London (and who would he be calling?!). Anyway the point of the story is, somebody did a poo in a public phone booth? Gross. I gagged. But of course this is all part of the experience. And if poop in a phone booth is the worst thing that happens to me, I'll be okay.

Today was Day 1 at the office and I have to tell you, I was really nervous. Or maybe I was just excited. Who knows. In any case, I was in bed at 7pm last night, and wide awake at 5am today, so I stayed in bed watching TV for a couple of hours before getting up at 7am to face my day.

Again, the tube commute into work went well and only took 20 minutes, which was really great as far as I was concerned. The walk uphill to my office just about killed me - and made me immediately regret the fact that I wore heels today. This regret was further reinforced throughout the day as I realised that my office building - while beautiful - is one spiral staircase after another, and all my travelling up & down them played havoc with my poor feet. At this moment I'm trying to ignore the weeping blister on my 2nd toe. So tomorrow it's definitely ballet flats all the way, baby.

I won't bore you with the details of my work, suffice to say that my colleagues seem lovely and I met so many new people whose names all ran in together. I am sure things will settle down once I start working on projects and collaborate properly with people in real time.

At the moment however, the focus is on finding somewhere to live. I check out of my hotel tomorrow and relocate temporarily to a friend's couch. She has lived in London for about 5 years and she's offered to help me look for places to live, which is such a blessing. Hopefully the apartment hunt won't be as arduous as I fear, and things will settle down (literally) soon. I just want to unpack these stinking suitcases...how nice THAT will be!

More news to follow...

What a difference a day makes

This time tomorrow I will be en route to the airport. I can't believe that my D-Day has come around so quickly and yet, there you have it.

My suitcases certainly zip up but because not everything is packed, I know I'll have to do a pretty serious re-pack later today. Trying to decide how to consolidate my wardrobe into 20kg of checked luggage has been a huge challenge; one that I have clearly not yet mastered.

I am feeling a bit more confident about the trip, certainly in regard to getting to my hotel after what I'm sure will feel like 50 hours in the air. I've sussed out the travel options at Heathrow, I've re-confirmed my hotel reservation, and I've worked out the nearby shopping and coffee spots to keep me occupied until I can check-in. I just hope that when my alarm goes off on Tuesday morning, I'm able to drag myself out of bed with some degree of enthusiasm to start this exciting new job. Fingers crossed!

See you on the other side.

Ready....steady....

Summer
Originally uploaded by m.aquila.

You would recall that I was supposed to fly to the UK yesterday but I had to postpone the trip because my visa had still not come through.

It should therefore come as no surprise whatsoever that no sooner had I rescheduled the trip and renegotiated my work start date, I got a message from the visa processors to say that my application had been approved. As I write this, my paperwork is in the back of a truck somewhere, on its way back to me. Typical.

I went to the travel agent yesterday and collected my revised airline ticket, so I'm set for a 13 June departure. I'll arrive in London on 14 June and start work the next day. I figure that by the weekend, the jetlag hallucinations will have abated. Well, we can only hope.

I also booked some hotel accommodation for the first two days, before my temporary couch surfing career begins. I'm going to be holed up in Bayswater, at a budget hotel around the corner from Whiteleys, the oldest shopping centre in London. I am pretty sure that in two short days, I will become very accustomed to living the Bayswater life. But from what I know of the area, from browsing accommodation ads, I probably can't afford to live there.

Never say never though, right? I mean, stranger things have happened. Perhaps while browsing at Whiteleys I will meet an old lady who lives alone in a palatial home (no cats) and who has an entire fully-furnished floor space that she'd like to rent to me. And then the old lady decides she can't handle the London climate anymore and she buys a house in Spain and gives me the run of the house in return for keeping it neat and clean.

Uh oh, the jetlag hallucinations have started and I haven't even taken off yet....

Travel Purgatory

All things being well, I will fly to the UK on Thursday morning to start my new job. Before that can happen though, two key things have to fall into place:

1. I need to pack
   This isn't as easy as it sounds, to be fair. I have forgotten how to rationalise my wardrobe to 20kg of checked luggage and 7kg of carry-on. Headed for an English summer, I've tried to edit (and re-edit) my prospective working & weekend wardrobes, but so far I still can't make it work. The suitcase is bursting with clothes, leaving no room for underwear or other sundries. Some serious work needs to be done on this.
   
   
2. I need my visa
   You'd be right to think that this should be my Concern Numero Uno, but I've relegated it to #2 because it's outside of my control right now. My visa paperwork is currently being processed, but I'm not sure how far off done it really is. The only thing I can do is to be optimistic that the bureaucrats in charge of these things will get their collective acts together and ship my certified passport back to me in the nick of time. By 5pm tonight, I'll know if I'm out of here on schedule, or if I need to reschedule my flight. Fingers and toes crossed.

In line with things always happening in threes, it's pretty typical that I'm getting a cold right now too. Brilliant timing. Ugh.

Here we go again

more suitcases
Originally uploaded by flint knits.

It occurs to me that it has been almost a year since I last posted on this site. In that time, I’ve come home to Australia; completed a university course; and (saving the best till last), I’ve caught up with much-missed friends and family.

Why, might you ask, am I breathing life back into the blog? Well, I’ve accepted a job overseas and so I’m on the move again. This time next week, I’ll be on the plane to London where I’ll be working with an Australian organisation, in an Events Coordinator role.

This is an exciting piece of news of course and I’m really looking forward to the adventure, but I’m not jumping out of my skin just yet. In fact, once the job was offered to me I didn’t accept it straight away. For several sleepless nights after I knew the role was mine, the battle between heart and head raged and my mental list of pros and cons was disturbingly even. Taking the job would mean leaving my family (again). Was that really something I wanted to do? And if I wasn't ready to leave my family, what kind of idiot applies for a job overseas? Backwards and forwards it went; you get the idea. In the end, I could not ignore the amazing career opportunity to work in London as the city prepares to host the summer Olympic Games 2012 – a textbook case of head trumping heart.

As my rational mind basks in the glow of its victory, my heart is focussed on the social advantages that this new challenge will bring. This move to London is a unique chance to discover a new city, a new country, and new friends – and you know how my heart loves all those things. Slowly but surely I'm making peace with my decision and I'm beginning to look forward to the good times ahead.

In the same way that you have been with me on previous adventures, I look forward to sharing London with you. If you want to recommend anything that I should see and do while I'm there, please leave me a comment because I'd love to share the fun and games with you.

Having a Sunday fiddle

Topol's farewell tour.
Originally uploaded by misstraceynolan.

I probably should have dyed my hair blue this morning, to be adequately prepared for today's theater adventure. The average age of the audience members would easily have been 85. But it's little wonder really - the star of the show was the one, the only TOPOL in his farewell tour of "Fiddler on the Roof".

My sister was never far from my mind as I watched Topol shimmy across the stage in "If I were a rich man" (do be do be do) - Jem's version of this number is rather like the Sugar Plum Fairy on crack - yet she will perform it upon request...and sometimes completely impromptu.

Topol has performed the role of Tevye over 2500 times and you've got to give props to a guy that can do that. I don't know how old Topol is for sure, but the man still has "it". The energy is boundless and the deep, booming voice is at once calming and commanding. In some scenes, he sounded like Andre The Giant and so I got the giggles. The old ladies tsked me all around. More giggles from me.

I was not laughing, however, during intermission when I tried to get to the bathroom. Trying to get 3,000 eighty-five year old women to pee in the space of 10 minutes is like herding cats. This time it was MY turn to tsk. I am so impatient when I need to pee.

After the performance I was in the mood to be indulgent, so I called into the iconic Petterino's and had a cosmo. The barman was a genius, mixing up a delicious shaker full of pink fabulousness just for me - and while I thought better than to tell him about my afternoon spent with the Blue Rinse Brigade, I sat alone to savour my cocktail as the old ladies around me enjoyed their dinner. At 5pm.

Like sand through the hourglass

time
Originally uploaded by My Symbiosis.

In one week, I will finish work. I am very nervous about this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I haven't been unemployed since I was 17. I'm not sure I'll be too good at it. Sure, I like slothing around as much as the next girl, but I get tired of it pretty quickly. And there's only so much daytime TV even I can take (sorry, Food Network, even you bore me after a while).

Secondly, finishing my job means that I'm almost leaving Chicago. One does not exist without the other. And the closer I get to my last day on the job, the closer I get to the last time I take the bus along glassy Lake Michigan, and the last time I stroll down the Magnificent Mile and the last time I...well, you get the picture.

My situation is nothing to pity of course. I chose to be in this situation - I'm not one of the unlucky ones to lose my job because of the financial slump the world is in, nor was I booted out for being naughty. I elected to put myself in this position - mea culpa and all that good stuff.

But don't the faceless "they" always tell you that you should leave a party while you're still having fun? Well that's what I'm doing - getting out while the getting is good.

I just wish my list of things to say goodbye to wasn't quite so long...