Rick Rollin’ Life goes on

Home
I am happy to report the bathroom is complete, and the Kitchen is 95% complete. It looks really good, although I don't think I would put in another wooden benchtop as although it hasn't been stained or damaged yet - I am afraid it will be. And as for the last 5% - I am looking for excuses not to do the work, but I am running out! I am very proud of it, and a huge word of thanks needs to go to Corde and Abby who helps massive amounts. It went in easier then I thought and I saved about 2500 pounds by doing it myself.

I have started biking to work, it was a method of getting fit - but I have found I really enjoy it. You would hope so given I spent about a 1000 pounds on the bike. But in typical half arse English style, the roads are pretty average. They don't ever seem to be able to actually finish and road works, leaving mounds of tarmac and divots all over the road.

Crude Trader
Just in the nick of time, not a moment to soon - I got a new job. Although I loved the Gas and Power Trading role, I was starting to get a little bored and the shift work was starting to get to me a bit. So when an internal crude trading role popped up, I applied for it and got it. I started shadowing my new role a couple of months ago while still covering my old job - but actually started in a couple of weeks ago. Its not directly trading physical oil, although I will be popping in and out of physical forwards - it focuses on the derivatives around crude, mainly CFDs and DFLs. On top of that there is a lot of speculative trading which the world hates us so much for ;) I am still amazed I got the job - to the point it may be one of the last jobs I do for a long time!

I am still assembling the photos of my last couple of trips - laziness knows no bounds. But I will get them up and a quick few words about them asap. Thats last xmas (!) trip to bath, Hawaii and a safari in Kenya and Tanzania. Not much planned going forward as I want to focus on my job, but with that being said - Corde is trying to rope me into another car rally across Europe through the *stans almost to China for next year.

New Home!

It took a while, with this incompetent UK system of buying / selling houses, but I finally completed on my place. It is a 2 bedroom, through living / dining room (i.e wall between them knocked out), kitchen, bathroom - mid-terrace in London. Happily located in Zone 3 - about 6 minutes walk to the Underground, which makes it perfect for going out and for commuting to work. It has a small courtyard behind the house with room enough for a dozen people to sit, drink and munch on sausages in summertime when the BBQ is fired up!

Overall I am happy with it, but it needs a little love and attention, and I plan on pretty much redoing every surface, walls, floors, ceilings etc, needs a couple of new double glazed windows, new front door but that is all pretty easy stuff. Just time and effort.

Got the important things already, new microwave, big king bed, and of course, the full high definition 42 inch big screen tv to play the Wii on. It is a great feeling to be walking in the front door of your own home :)

2007 COP Dinner Dance / P2D Car

Dinner Dance
Nothin really to say - but a great night out at the British Natural History Museum. The venue was fantastic with bit dinosaur in the center and great lighting effects around the room.

P2D Car
Corde and I finally purchased a car for our rally to Dakar. A 1980 merc 300D. Its a big old rusty Mercedes 3 litre diesel. Its a tank, its a beast and we love it. Corde went looked at car this afternoon down in Wales - and quickly snatched it up for 500 quid. It is a sweet ride even if it has some extra ventilation through the rust holes. We will be cruising in style. We have nic-named our new team member Rusty - for obvious reasons.. On the whole it is in top condition and there is very little work to be done - which suits us just nicely. We were starting to get a tad worried about our lack of a vehical.

Keep up to date on : http://kiwisontour.slowlane.net

Kickin’ it London Style

Softball
I have been playing softball for a few months now (about half the season) - joining Abby's work team : Team GA. It has been great fun, few beers, good people and a good laugh. It is slightly competitive and we don't like to lose. So last Thursday we won our final game of the season - which put us equal first place, but with point difference we knocked up to first place! Next season we will go up to the top league - bring it!

Mums Visit
When we weren't in France and Luxembourg Mum was floating around London. We spent a nice sunny day at the London zoo where one of us went a little ape. Toured the British museum which I must admit was more impressive then I thought it would be. Spent a day down in Brighton out on the pier, beach, shopping and generally looking about. Mum and I went up to Lynda and Howard's (relatives) for a couple of nights. Few other bit and pieces which I don't have photos for and finally dinner with Toby and Gemma the night before she left to go back home to New Zealand.

Football champions, Bricks and Mortar

Footy
There was an industry football tournament about a week ago – 7 a side. With about a dozen teams, and our team having no substitutes we weren’t expecting much, but as we started to play and gel we came into some form. Dominating the pool stage, we pushed on through the semis and a final with a climatic ending with a penalty shootout. Victory was our, but after a good 2.5 hours of football in an afternoon we were shattered and welcomed a quick trip to the pub. We collected our Cup and prizes and headed back to the office to gloat.

House
Last weekend I put an offer on a two bed mid terrace house, on Monday it was accepted. I am really happy with it, (assuming it goes through without incident). It is less then 5mins from the tube and takes me about 30 minutes door to door for me to get to work. Will be great to get into my own place without people above or below me, BBQs in the back yard etc.

Dakar Challenge
Corde and I signed up for the Plymouth to Dakar rally in Jan '08. A ~4000mile rally through Europe and the west coast of Africa taking a little under a month to complete. We have submitted our application and just have to wait to see if it gets accepted before sorting out the finer details like finding a car. Its all for charity but sounds like a fantastic experience! If it gets accepted, I will set up a small side blog to keep you all informed of developments.

Home is where the heart is

Had a bit of time to think and plan on Saturday, as I was recovering from a mildly large Friday night - Dale Bergin's leaving do at the Tuns (photo: Toby, Milly and Dale) which started with a few beers, moved to spirits and ended with a bottle of tequila concluded with a 3am close relationship with my porcelain friend - the toilet. So a few hours of trying not to move in the morning gave me time to think....

I thought it was time to take a step back and take check of whats going on. I've been so very busy lately - since Christmas I have spent a little over 3 weeks in the states, a week in Italy, few days down in Brighton, few days in Paris, Abby has visited twice and in between this I have been working hard.

I haven't really progressed much in finding a permanent home recently, due to simply being busy. And to be honest I miss having a homey home. So with some cash burning a hole in my pocket - I am going to put some real effort in. I have canceled a few up coming trips to put some effort into it, I have enough for a couple of deposits, so I am throwing around the idea of getting two-two bedroom flat/apartments in zone 3 on a tube line and renting one of them. The big question resides with the bank letting me buy-to-let a second place. I think once I have my own place I will be a tad more content with chilling out at home.

Cheltenham, Chester, Children and Christmas

Hey everyone, things have been pretty quiet on the travel and adventure front. I have been saving a little cash with the expectation of buying a place in the new year, focusing on work, the gym and just spending time with friends. I got a hair cut the other day, first one in about a year I think (see right). Next Friday, I am heading to a Guinness world record attempt for the largest blind date, after registering we get set up with someone on the night, see a movie then head to an after party...should be a good time out. Bit of a bunch of us going, so we should be able to escape if our dates go all bad.

The 'divorce', which I now call it, is slowly progressing…we finally agreed no arrangement would work out between us and we put the house on the market, it sold pretty quickly, so just have to wait for it to go through now…

Cheltenham and Chester
Not wanting to neglect those out of London, I headed out a couple of weeks ago to catch up with Steve and Jane at their new base in Cheltenham. It was just a good catch up in the little town. Helped them move into their new Cody (dog) friendly place and then just hung out. The most amusing thing is the amount of pressure Jane is putting on Steve to start a family - pressure he is resisting for now.
Few weeks later - I headed up to Chester by train to visit Sonh another old BKK friend to see Chester and again just catch up. Chester is a pretty little city, with a large amount of Tudor houses, markets and alleys. Walking around the city centre you come to a park, which happens to have cows in it, so I use the term 'city' loosely. She also has a dog, well its half a dog as it had to have half its tail amputated recently. But the size of Eliza the makes up for her tail deficiencies, a great dane.

Baby Olivia and Mates
A tad old, but with such good news I had to put it in. There is a new member to the extend family. Shanes and Bridgets little Olivia. Obviously got her good looks from Bridgets side of the family. Shane - looks like you will have to have two teams now, a rugby and a netball team!

Radford is now settled and working in Munch, still havn't managed to visit but with him living there, I will have to make the most of the living room couch. Tom and Kat are pretty established, good jobs, flat and life going well in the south of London. Corde is nearing the end of his time in the UK, heading back home at Christmas time - which is a shame as its been good having him over here.

Caught up with Simon when he came over for a few days on a quick tour with his misses. He is good and enjoying self employment as a an Eng. consultant. A couple of weeks later, Corde and I tagged along with Lisa and her flatmates to a Rollerdisco! With hundreds of people at various levels of skill on rollerskates, booze flowing freely, and slopes amongst other obstacles it was a great night of fun with many entertaining collision. No photos of that one I am afraid.

Christmas, and Happy New Year!
So you wont be hearing from me until after Xmas and New Years. I have got tickets to go to California to catch up with Nick and Jade for a few days in LA, but spending the majority (about two and a half weeks) of my time with Bonnie up on Mammoth Mountian ski field. Really looking forward to it, if I have access to a pc in the evenings I will keep you up to date, if not... Merry Xmas and have a great New Year!

Last minute trip

With my next 11 day 'weekend' fast approaching and other things occupying my mind, I didn't have anything planned. Also not wanting to go traveling on my own and not being able to find anyone with the same schedule I went to the source of all knowledge - the internet. A quick search of the gumtree and I found a little add for someone who was about to start a month+ long tour of Europe starting the day after my shift. A few emails later, it turned out Marie was finishing up work in London and heading home to Canada. She had most of her trip planned and I was more than keen to join her first 10 days from Budapest (Hungry) -> Vienna (Austria) -> Munich (Germany) before having to fly home while she carries on her trip.

So a few last minute easyjet flights and some quick hostel bookings I am ready to go, just need to finish my shift and I am out of her!

Dominion Post - Wellington

Just had this sent through from NZ (via Lisa), it is a photo from our last Waitangi Day pub crawl making the front page of the Dominion Post. My orginal photo is here. Well done Corde and Lisa for making the front page for getting drunk!

Should be back on the photo snapping bug again as I just spent a pretty penny on a Canon IXUS 800 camera. Just in time for next weeks trip to Budapest -> Vienna -> Munich.

Edit 1# Sorry - about the mass email this morning, I accidentally hit send instead of save when fixing a typo. But to use it to my advantage, as this site no longer includes Carmen, if you are no longer interested you can contact me to be removed from the sites distribution list. aaron.grey@gmail.com

Edit 2# Just received two copies of the Dominion Post in the mail, so there is one for both of you Corde and Lisa. Big cheers and thanks to the Newspaper guys!

The Great British Beer Festival

Not entirely sure how, but I think it was the larger than life Mr Paddack that dragged us along to the GBBF. A group of work mates, Brett, Kathi and Matt, Don and Nikki, Raj, myself and Nigel there for opening at 11am, there for closing at 6pm. It was a good ole laugh which turned into a mini pub crawl afterwards as we tried to find ‘just one more’ drink for the road. Even got the souvenir glass.

New Job - Shift trader
As most are aware, I started a new job a couple of weeks ago. I have gone into a gas and power shift trading team at work. First month and a bit were taken up with shadowing and learning, but as of last week I started full time. Well when I say full time, I work a mixture of days and nights for seven days then have about 11 days off. So it will really open up the possibilities for travel. I am really excited about it as it is a stepping stone to what I currently want to get into – trading.

This is my desk - no really. I think I should be able to maintain a decent tan from the 6 screens, and get suitably confused by the 3 fixed phones and cell phone.

Some closure and Goodwood

Closure
As most of you know, Carmen and I split a week ago. Having moved out this weekend I found out some things (which I wont go into), which has made me feel a lot better. I am still upset about breaking up, but what was really concerning me until this morning (which, I never told anyone) was if I was throwing away a repairable future with Carmen. This morning was the proverbial last nail in the coffin, so I now know that it was completely over even before we came to a heads last weekend. So I feel better in that I don’t have to worry about making a mistake.

The unfortunate thing is that we have now done and said things which will mean we may never be friends either, which in its self is a shame as I think had we simply split up we would have been good friends / travelling buddies. Maybe time will prove me wrong, but it will take a lot of time on both sides now.

Goodwood: Festival of Speed
On a brighter and sunnier note: Corde, Ken and I got up at the crack of dawn to head off to coast to Goodwood on Sunday. As we rocked up, the heavens opened and we saw visions of miserable day, but within only half an hour the sun was out and by mid afternoon I was already nursing a light sunburn (yes! In England).

Sunday is the hill climb race day, it isn’t as much a race as it is a showcase of motorcars/bikes over the last century. Ranging from original coal powered contraptions to current formula 1 cars. There were about 6 of the current f1 drives there, including Kimi, and Fisichella, as well as some oldies like Damon Hill. Some fabulous cars there, lots of 2006 supercars, concepts cars, heaps of classics. Best part of it, is you can walk around the pits, talk to all the drivers, peak inside. Photos are coming, but I have limited internet access at the moment. Really great event if you are motor enthusiast, still good when your not like me!

Happy Birthday Aaron

OK, OK, so it's almost a month ago since Aaron saw the side closer to 30 than to 20, but for those that forgot... Celebrating in style, we had the crowd head down from London to see us for a drink and then a dinner out.

There is little news to add, apart from thanks everyone for coming down, eating, drinking and being very merry with us! and thanks to those that sent/gave pressies.

Waitangi Day Pub Crawl

No better way to celebrate our national 'unity' day with a pub crawl on the other side of the world. Struggling for motivation, a handful of university mates talked us into going to the 'event'. Kicking off from Paddington tube station, the concept was to have a drink at each of the Circle Line stops. We arrived to a sea of black, impressed we grabbed a drink and headed down to the underground for a circle line tube to move to the next station. The platform was packed, a good ten people deep, as a district line pulled up, everyone started booing and yelling at the locals. You felt sorry for them in the tube, they pull up to the station not knowing whats going on, then get boo'ed and yelled at by a couple thousand people on the platform. When the Circle line did turn up, the chant went up of 'OFF OFF OFF' to get those on the tube off as quickly, so we could get going. So the only rules on the crawl were, no sitting on the tube, no holding on while on the tube and Circle line only.

After one or two stops, there were that many kiwis (I am estimating about 5-10 thousand). That you would come up from the underground, and would not physically be able to get into the nearest pub, let alone the next closest, nor the next. So you would resort to going into the closest supermarket to buy a few drinkings. Good in theory, but by the time you got to the supermarket at each stop, the booze shelf was empty, completly gutted by the hordes before you.

Before long we had a mildy large police escort. Then, they started closing the underground station because there were to many of us and they decided that it was dangerous with so many people on the under ground. I think that is a pretty cool acvievment, a pub crawl so large that is shuts down portions of Londons public transport.

The crawl took a breath at Parlaiment, where those that were that way inclined took part in doing a haka, again impressive when there are about a thousand people doing it a once.

Serious Fun
A bit late, but Matt just sent this photo through to us. At Christmas six of us (Nicole, Carmen, Radford, Matt, Karina and Aaron) went river surfing. Simply you grab a body board, a wet suit, jump into a white rapid river and try and survive through until the other end. It was a hell of a lot of fun, even the name of the company was fun, in fact it was 'serious fun'.

A Christmas Do in January

Three days after we got back, and we were still waking up at 3.30am, it was that time of year again - time for my work Christmas Do (yes in January).

Not too much to report, well nothing that would be interesting to most. One thing though, when you spend all day with people in white coats, white shoes and a white hair net under hideous fluorescent lighting, it is surprising how well they scrub up.

Dinner and dancing before a 12.30 departure to curl up in bed after a very long day,
leaving feeling that I didn't get to say hi to hardly any of the people I'd meant to - a task that is much harder in my current people management role.

What was amusing was that a number of my staff came to have a chat Monday morning, very tentatively telling me that they remembered talking to me, but had no idea what they'd said. I reassured them we were all talking rubbish, then stored up the details for a later date.

I won't say much else, as I'm sure it is just the pics of everyone looking glamourous that you're after.

Kiwi’s hit London

We've been inundated with Kiwi travellers lately, which is all good, means that I keep my kiwi accent and don't sound too posh. First there was Corde, who stayed with us for a couple of weeks, and is now living and working in London. We catch up with Corde on the phone almost weekly (generally when he needs help with his computer, yes I pass him over to Aaron), and try and catch up in person every couple of weeks.

Janna was the next to grace our floors, spending a week with us following her contiki tour through Spain and Italy. She moved out and up to London and spent a couple of weeks there before heading off to visit relations in the Netherlands then off to Belgium for a couple of weeks printing. Looking forward to catching up with her when she gets back at the end of September.

Just before Janna left, I met up with her in London for a catch up, and she showed up with a few other familiar faces. Tori, who is currently working near Dover and considering staying in the UK for a bit longer, and Sally who has just arrived to further her studies.

Long time, no hear…

Those faithful slowlane watchers will have noticed that things have been pretty quiet from Aaron and I lately. Life hasn't been filled with it's usual level of travelling, as we've been saving hard. About 2 and a half months ago now, we put an offer in on a flat. Wheels turn slowly in England sometimes, and this is a prime example... not quite like in good ol' NZ where you can put an offer in and move in the week later. Anyhow, it's just a little 1 bedroom place, but it'll be nice to not have to pay rent (just a mortgage to worry about instead now). The place is a conversion of a terraced house into 2 flats, with us buying the upstairs one. When we finally move in, we'll post some more pictures, but until then, at least you're all in the know.

A few other things have been happening... we've had both Corde and Janna stay with us a different times, preferring to stay on our sofa than pay London Hostel prices while they found their feet. Great to catch up with both of them and hear all about their travels on contiki tours on the way to the UK.

Janna just moved out Saturday after staying for a week, it's been over 18 months since I saw her, so heaps of catching up to do, and we finished the week off with an afternoon out in Brighton then a girls night out in Worthing with a few workmates.

Work has been busy for Aaron and I. Those that have been in regular contact will know that I've moved up the ranks at work into a People Management position, which comes with it's own challenges, and after a steep learning curve, I'm starting to feel like I'm on top of it now. Just about everyone in Aaron's department has jumped ship to other departments leaving Aaron as the 'pro', so they've been leaning heavily on him, though it's starting to settle down now.

Anyhow, next planned trip is Egypt for 2 weeks in October, then home for Xmas. We'll probably get a couple of trips around the UK in between too, but I can see Xmas will sneak up on us. Would love to hear what everyone else is up to, so leave us a comment or drop us a line.

London: City of Terror.

Tabloids are always quick to a catchy title.

Evening everyone. We wanted to let you all know we are both fine and dandy. We have had quite a few emails and text messages from people asking about our welfare, and we do appreciate it.

This morning, some explosions were set off on the underground and bus mass-transit systems. It very quickly disrupted London. We have TVs at work and were able to watch the events unfold all day. I work in the heart of London overlooking Oxford St between Marble Arch and Bond St. Normally at any given time you can see between 15-20 buses driving up Oxford St, but within hours and lasting all day the street was deserted. The only traffic we saw was a flurry of activity from time to time of ambulances and police whizzing by in either direction. By home time, main train stations had been reopened but the underground and bus systems were still shut to the public.

It does really phase me much personally, as I am off the opinion you would have to be exceptionally unlucky to get caught up in it, and there isn't much you could do to avoid it anyways. That said, it does make you more aware of the possibilities.

As far we are aware, everyone else we know in London is alive and well.

Better late than never…

A rushing sound encircled the two New Zealanders. "What was that?" Carmen said involuntarily as she turned to try and get a glance of a formless shape disappearing over the horizon. Without looking, Aaron replied "That would be time, two months worth, flying by".

Well, it's been a while... and I'm sure you've all missed us! A joint effort on this post, as our audience is not only demanding 'Awesome' but 'Exxxtreeeemeee coolness' as well, will the demands ever stop? Carmen wrote the outline, and I am jazzing it up with photos, abuse and general one-liners targeting anyone who is close.

Well, from the reports I've had and the numerous questions about 'when will Slowlane.net be updated?'. Well the answer is now.

Well a few big things have happened over the last month or so. The first being a move from London to Redhill in Surrey. This is about 1/2 an hour south of London on the train and quite close to Gatwick Airport for those familiar with the English countryside. We are living in a 1 bedroom shoebox - nah it's not too bad and does us perfectly. It's nice not to have to worry about flatmates and just do your own thing. We are in a block of 9 flats, but basically never see the people from the other flats. Bedroom - Bathroom - Kitchen - Living room

And we have (well I (Carmen) really) wheels, YAY! I've been missing driving so much, and now that we live so much closer to my work, it is more economical for me to drive to work. Also means we have the freedom to jump in the car at the weekend and go exploring. We'll probably do a lot more of that when summer comes around. (Aaron - You wouldn't believe this one, I will reinact it below:

Scene: Carmen is sitting at the computer; Aaron enters through the front door from a long hard day at work.
Aaron: Howdy babe, good day?
Carmen: I might be in a spot of trouble.
Carmen beginning to look very guilty.
Aaron: What have you done!
Carmen: I bought a car on eBay (internet auction site)
Aaron: You what! have you seen it?! how much!?!
Carmen: Bought a car, no, ummm just under £800
Aaron passes out in disbelief at the stupidity
It turned out fine, the car is seems mechanically sound, as far as our combined motor-knowledge would tell us. So Carmen now drives to work, taking her about 30 mins, and I am catching the train, then a bus, then a short walk. About an hour door to door. Get the impression someone got the raw end of the deal? The car is a 1998 Renault Megane, 1.4 Ltr (for insurance) and about 60,000 miles on the clock.

Speaking of summer, it seems a long way off still. We've had snow almost every day for the last 2 weeks, just a little bit each day, but enough to settle usually.

Both Aaron and I are trucking along quite nicely at work, with our respective companies helping us along wherever they can - got to be a good sign. Aaron - I have just signed up to do a three year accountancy course which will result in me being qualified (work paying).

Next planned trip is to Rome for Easter, and then you can see our other planned trips here.

News from home:
Massive congratulations to Tom and Kat on the engagement. I can't find the worlds to express how happy I am for the two of you.

On a sadder note, a good friend Kate O'Boyle passed away. She died doing what she did best, living life to the fullest.

Christmas a day early

Firstly, hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas spent with family and friends and that Santa brought you everything you wanted!

Our Christmas started on the 24th December at 11am. We decided that the pile of presents was really too big to take to Wales then to Scotland with us, and as 11am on the 24th December is really midnight, and hence Christmas Day, this was a good compromise.

Big thanks to everyone that sent over presents! I must admit I wasn't expecting to get much being on this side of the world, but in the weeks leading up to Christmas, they just kept coming and coming!

I get the feeling that a lot of possum's died for us this Christmas, as that was definitely the dominant feature in opening the presents, with Aaron and I both getting Merino-Possum scarf's and socks from Aaron's parents, and me getting a Merino-Possum jersey and gloves and Aaron getting Merino-Possum socks from my Nana.

I managed to get quite a pile of presents including: a new sleeping bag, a couple of pairs of earrings and a few other little things from Mum and Dad; a travel frisbee, travel radio/clock and NZ playing cards from Marc (my little bro); a print from Janna and a number of bottles of wine from workmates.

Aaron gots lots of socks!

We then headed off to Victoria Coach Station to catch our £3 bus to Cardiff. Just briefly, there is a funny story that goes with this one... Aaron had told Steve, the guy we were staying with, that we were arriving on the 23rd, when we were actually coming on the 24th. With Aaron's phone on silent, neither of us had heard the 12 missed calls, 2 text messages or 2 very worried messages from Steve coming through until 1.30am. By this time, Steve had been to the bus station in Cardiff (20 mins away from his house) and the train station and been in touch with the police and hospital. Needless to say, Aaron was a little red-faced.

Christmas tidings

That time of year draws close once again. So before we disappear for a couple of weeks through the South of Wales for Christmas and into the high country of Scotland for New Years I thought we should say "Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year".

I have just finished up with my work Christmas outings, first one was an official work one were we took the day off to go wine tasting and sampling at Venopolis, by the end of the wine we were walking the street with our boss in a Santa outfit, all of us in either Santa hats or reindeer antlers. We than headed to the London eye at night time, with bottles of champagne. A couple in the next capsule got engaged at the top, of course there we were cheering in our Christmas outfits. Finally we moved on to a restaurant to eat and exchange £5 secret Santa gifts. The next night was the social clubs organised outing, we had been pre-organised into groups and given a musical which we had to sing a song from. We were given, Saturday Night Fever, and my group had chosen Tragedy by the Bee Gees. So embarrassment aside, my impersonation of John Travolta went without a hitch. A good evening. Now we have Carmens to look forward to which are in the New Year.

We have had a pretty eventful year all round. Both Carmen and I finished up our Masters in the beginning of the year and quickly joined the mass exodus or the 'brain drain' to head over to the UK. Arriving, we crashed at a cousins of mine before he got sick of us and found us a flat to live in. After an initial three months of temping, Carmen found herself a full time job at a pharmaceutical company, she is very happy with the actual job but there seem to be a few rough bits around the edges such as the travel time to and from work each day.

After Carmen slipped into her new job, I did a shifty into her old temping position, last week they offered me a permanent position as a financial analyst, which I have accepted and started on Monday. I am very happy with the new position and things are looking up.

And of course there has been the exploring of London, England, UK and the begins of the rest of Europe. Highlights include La Tomatina in Spain, were I managed to throw lots of tomatoes at Carmen. Oktoberfest was a fun event, both with a great group on the bus trip and with the impressive scale of the event and beer consumed. Our whirlwind tour of Scotland also leaves fond memories, it was fun, interesting and I even got go for a swim with Nessy.

To all our friends, family, people we have meet over the last few months, we hope you have a great Christmas, as my Dad says, Christmas isn't about the giving of presents, its about the receiving. So I hope you get lots in your stockings. Thanks to those who have kept in touch and we look forward to catching up again in the New Year.

Camden Market and Fireworks

Big hello to Nick and Lisa, that have joined us from NZ in the kiwi assault on the UK (yes the Kiwi's are taking over)!!! Lisa is studying at Cranfield Uni and Nick is working at a pub while he hunts for a 'proper' job. They came down for the day last Saturday and it was nice to be around kiwi accents.

We met up at Camden Market and spent the morning checking out the stalls, then making the most of the cheap variety of food available. In the afternoon we headed to Westminster Abbey - only to find it is closed Saturday afternoons, so we went to check out Covent Garden and see a few street performers. With the sun setting, it was decided that we would shoot back to our flat for a quick bite then off to Battersea Park to see some fireworks for Guy Fawkes.

The Guy Fawkes display was probably very amazing, well at least the bits we saw were and it was at least 20 mins long. Unfortunately visability was reduced by a bit of light drizzle and it was announced that it was the 'best firework display that I never saw.'

We were amused by the lack of parking skills displayed by the motorists while we stood waiting for the display to start. One car that was at least a foot to long for the park (even if a crane had picked it up and tried to put it in), tried parallel parking, then finding that 'parking by braille' wasn't working for him, decided to park using the bulldozer technique of nudging (not so gently) the nice new mini out of the way. Considering there were at least 80 people turned round watching the lack of skills this motorist exhibited, leaving to find another park was probably a good idea.

Home Sweet Home

So we've been meaning to show you where we live for a while... but good things take time.

Kitchen/Lounge
Here is our kitchen. It's pretty new and has all the essentials: microwave, oven, dishwasher, full size fridge, underbench freezer. The oven and hobs are gas (as are all the ovens, hobs, and heating over here) which is so much faster than electric to cook on. The lounge and kitchen are joined and on the same floor as our room.

Our bedroom
Our bedroom is pretty big and is basically a bedroom at one end and an office at the other. We had a whole lot of photos printed while we were in Thailand and they are all up on the walls and the bed spread is also another Thailand purchase.

From the outside
This is from the road. That is Kate's car out front in the disabled park (which isn't a disabled park anymore apparently). If you look really closely, you'll see Aaron in the window of our room and Kate popping out from her loft bedroom.

Bathroom/Laundry
Just the norm here - shower, basin, toilet, washing machine and drying rack. We also have another toilet - which is good at times. The bathroom and spare toilet are on the same floor as Richard's room. It is work in progress, but I'm used to living in half-finished houses so I feel like I'm at home.

Back Garden
The garden is quite big - a lot bigger than I expected from a London house and is off the back of Kate's parent's flat on the first floor. We made good use of it during the summer, getting out there for BBQ's and just to sit in the sun and read.

Think that pretty much wraps up the tour - hope you enjoyed it!!!

And on a lighter note... Would you give money to this man?

Hi to Aaron's dad and good on him for getting out there and helping out with the collection for the blind

Conoco Phillips Dinner Dance

Friday night was the official Conoco Phillips Christmas Party (in October - I know!!!) and it was held at the London Zoo. The theme was bugs and the pre-dinner drinks were in the Bug House.

With Aaron currently working there, and me having work there in the not-so-distant past, it was really great! Not one of those dinner parties where one person knows everyone and the other person knows no-one. It was very, very posh with the guys all in black tie and the gals dressed up to the nines. So different to see the guys that I used to see in the office in open-necked shirts in a bow-tie and jacket (though they didn't seem to last long on most of the guys as they opted for comfort over style).

It was a great chance to me to catch up with the friends that I'd made while I was working there and they were all very keen to hear about how my new job is going, which by the way is going very well. My official title is Technical Manager and I'm in the Packaging department, which means I'm learning all about blisters, bottles and cartons for the pharmaceutical industry. I've been very busy already and can see that it will be a very rewarding position.

Times of Change - A new job at a company which cannot be named

Listen up, I've got an announcement. I have just accepted a job at a company which cannot be named Pharmaceuticals as a Production Engineering Management Graduate (whew, what a mouthful). After going through an interview and an assessment centre, the powers that be have decided I'm the one for the job.

The basic outline is that a company which cannot be named have been looking for a new production manager to join their team and having little luck (after interviewing like 20 people), so they have gone back a step and looked for a graduate. The theory is that I will start out learning the ropes and as I go on, will be given more and more responsibility. They are hoping that I will slide into the production manager position within 18 months, so I feel I have big shoes to fill.

The downside is a bit of a commute. It is based in Horsham (about an hour on the train each way from our house) but I'm hoping to be able to work on the train. The upside is that I will be going against the flow of commuters so will have the train to myself most of the time.

There were 8 initial candidates that were interviewed, 3 got to the assessment centre, and I'm not sure if they hired 1 or 2 of us (will have to wait til I get there). The assessment centre involved an hour interview, a 20 minute presentation, a team exercise, a numerical reasoning test, an oral reasoning test and a factory tour (I was very tired by the end of the day) The annoying thing about the way that hiring is done in this country is that it is all through a recruitment agency, so finding out about the terms of the contract involved a lot of phonecalls from me to my recruitment lady to a company which cannot be named to my recruitment lady and finally back to me.

I will definitely be sad to leave behind my job at Conoco Phillips as I have made quite a few friends here and it is a great environment with great benefits, but working here has made me realise that I'm not really thrilled about finance.

They wanted me to start ASAP, but I feel a bit obligated to help out my boss, Katy, at Conoco Phillips and then we are off to Spain for a week at the end of the month and off to Germany mid September, so I'll start on the 27th of September.

Flat Dinner the 2nd

Once again us and the flatties managed to go most of the month without seeing much of each other... it's not intentional, just seems to happen like that with us all leading busy lives. After putting the flat dinner off 3 weeks in a row seen as someone always seemed to have something on, we finally got around to it last Tuesday (ok so this post is a week late - things have been busy.)

It was a wonderful evening in Brockey that should have been spent around Kate's flash new BBQ that Aaron, Richard and I spent about 2 hours putting together the night before. (Upon arriving at work the next day, we discovered we had been very lucky indeed with many others being caught in torrential downpours and enduring journey's of up to 5 hours to get home)

Unfortunately a lack of gas bottle meant that we had to revert to a poxy English disposable BBQ, but it ended up being a great evening spent with great people (including the 4 of us that live here and Ang, an Ozzie friend of Kates, who is an honourary flatmate), a lot of beer and a lot of food.

Finally, we'd like to thank Fosters for their sponsorship of this event (Kate won the BBQ and a years supply of Fosters among other things in a radio competition).

Hi Tori and Charlotte

Just wanted to say a big Hi to Tori and hope that the rest of your travels in England are going well. Tori stayed with us on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and it was awesome to catch up and hear all her stories about Prague (she was just happy to see TV in English). Unfortunately I was working during the day, but she managed to pack a whole heap in (Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Baker St etc) and I got to see her in the evenings.

Was also fantastic to spend Friday lunchtime with Tori and Charlotte (been here 2 weeks now) in Hyde Park. We've been having wonderful weather the last week, and I was so depressed to have to go back to work that arvo while they went off to see some more sights. Unfortunately I was a bit slack in remembering to take some photos, but those that know Tori knows what she looks like anyway and I'm sure she'll be sending out a big e-mail about England when she gets back to Prague.

11 August 2004. Well after me saying I was slack in taking photos, Tori decided to come back and stay for another couple of days the following week. Once again I was working during the day, but Tori managed to catch Romeo and Juliet at the globe (which is what she came back for) so I think she was pretty happy.

Leeds, Walkabout and Portobello Road

Last week, I got taken up to Leeds with work to run a recruitment centre with work. Caught a train up Monday, came back on Friday. Shocking thing was it cost £140 for transport. Leeds seems like a nice city, but then I only got to see the city at night. Work consisted of ferrying applicants into waiting rooms, into interviews and into technical scenario test rooms. I felt like a bellhop for the week.

Saturday morning, we headed to a Walkabout. It is a chain of pubs established for Ex-pat Kiwis, Ozzies, Boks and slowly integrating Zims. It is cheap booze, large tv screens and good atmosphere. Anyway, we headed in to watch the South Africa vs Australia rugby game. Ozzie won, good time by all.

In the after noon we headed to Portobello road. A famous street market I hear, you might have seen it in the movie Notting Hill. We had a good look around, there are some very cool nics ‘n’ knacks there, but nothing you would really want to buy or need. It was an exceptionally hot day, and after our up tenth drink, we decided it was to go home and lay in some sunshine or at least find some shade.

Waiting time 2 time with doctor ratio: ~75:1

Over the last week or two, I have had a bit of a blocked ear, with every now and again some pain when there is a sudden pressure change like when in a train and the train goes trough a tunnel. Yesterday and last night it climaxed in all out agony. I was bearing through it, till it got to midnight, I realised there was no hope; I was not going to get any sleep, it was effecting my balance and I was clenching my fists in pain. Something obviously not quite right. So, in not so pleasant terms I told myself to go get help. So after a quick ring around, I realise there is no 24 hour / after hours surgery in the UK and my only option was A&E at the local hospital.

Carmen in her generosity and kindness accompanied me to the hospital. Of course we have no transport, so had to walk. It is about 20-minute walk to the nearest hospital. We sign in, I get seen by a nurse who basically assesses if you are going to die while waiting for a doctor. Then you wait. Wait a bit longer. And wait. 150 minutes later, I get called into the doctor, who looks in my ear. Says "woo that’s nasty infection". Walks away gets antibiotics, and painkillers. Problem solved. It annoys me a bit, when was the last time you had an ear infection, umm when I was like 5? Must be this English winter, I mean summer.

Waiting time to time with doctor ratio: ~75:1. We walked home at about 4am. It did make getting up at 7am for work this morning difficult.

To be honest I would have been pretty upset about the whole experience, if it wasn't for the fact it was free. Free consultation, and free drugs. They have numerous nurses, who see you very quickly, but obviously are not allowed to do anything. And two doctors. There was about a constant 7-10 people in the A&E, almost all minor stuff, and the odd ambulance trucks on up and everyone gets pushed down the waiting list while the new emergency gets seen to. A dedicated doctor (like a normal GP) for walk-in A&E cases would solve all waiting problems, well it would have for last night but apparently it was a slow night.

ConocoPhillips BBQ

Last Thursday, the sun stayed out long enough for us to have a work BBQ in the park just down the road. I do say the sun stayed out long enough because it was raining half an hour before the BBQ started.

Basically the BBQ involved standing around drinking wine out of plastic Starbucks cups (that hold twice as much as a wine glass, and Sabrina insisted on them being full), eating burnt patties, and once the patties had gone down and the wine had kicked in, the sumo wrestling and horizontal bungee started.

My big boss, Wes, decided that my boss, Katy, and I should give sumo wrestling a go. We get on pretty well, and so figured - why not? (as you do after a few glasses of wine). Everyone else spent the entire time laughing at us, but not as much as we were laughing at ourselves. It's funny how hard it is to get up off the floor in these huge suits. In the end we called it quits and still have no idea who won (cos we were giggling too much to figure it out).

Thats a wrap

Things have settled well, even better that we now have broadband wireless in the flat. I am again complete. I have decided to stick out my temping job at the Environment Agency until the end of the contract which is in October, I now have enough to do and it is keeping me busy. I have settled into a PA role, editing, writing reports, organising meeting etc, its not glamorous but it is paying well enough and it is not at all hard/stressful or challenging which gives me time to find other things to do (while not get bored). Although I found the engineering degree both interesting and challenging, I cannot find an application or job in the field which really interests me. So, I am thinking about applying to finance/banking/trading positions as the end of the contract draws nearer. Partly because the pay seems to be good, but also because I am actually interested in the field. I had an interview for an engineering technical sales position this week and found myself screaming on the inside run away, it is good to be narrowing the field. Sales is not even an option now.

So we have done a quick catch up session this evening, the last two posts were backdated to give some close reference to when we went on the trips. I will now tie up some lose ends of things we have done over the last week.

Science Museum
London has a Science Museum, which in short rocks. It is very cool, we spent about 5 hours there and I think we covered about 40% of the museum (keep in mind we are engineers). It is really well laid out and lots of interactive exhibits which keeps you interested. We are going back in a week or two to finish it off. We will give a full post then..

Canary Wharf and Bollywood Dancers
We went for a walk around Canary Wharf, which is the new mini Manhattan of London. It doesn’t fit in with the old, stone history of London at all. It is very nice (and expensive, you get the impression a water might cost £3). Anyhoo… we stumbled across a Bollywood dance exhibit, they were the performers from a recently ended stage production of Bombay Dream. The show was pretty well done and good to watch.

Water Puppets
Finally, last night we went to Greenwich to watch Vietnamese water puppetry. What’s that you ask, as did we, hence why we went. It was a full on production, with lighting, music and choreography. It was done at night, hence the photos didn’t come out to flash (pun intended). First, look at the photos more closely (i.e. click on them and this one). You can see the back drop, in front of that is a pool about 1m deep and 5m from front to the back drop. They control these puppets from behind the drop, though the water, now this in its self does not sound very impressive, but it is once you watch it. The puppets are able to cross over each other, move various limbs, breath fire (dragons), climb on each other… The two pictures there are of three boats with small team of people which actually row. They were having races in that skit. The one pictured (right) is of a group of woman dancing, they were all doing twirls, and line dancing.. it was very impressive, but hard to convey. The commentary was in Vietnamese, which wasn’t annoying but we didn’t get the obvious jokes when half the crowd started to laugh.

Formula 1 comes to London

Don’t know if you guys have heard the latest news over there or not? The Mayor of London is highly keen on having a Formula 1 Grand Prix grace the streets of downtown London once Silverstone’s contract expires in 2006. In an effort to show dedication to this idea, promote the British Grand Prix and show that London is capable of handling hoards of people (also in hoping to get the Olympics in 2012), Regent Street was closed for all of Tuesday, to set up for the 6pm blitz around the streets by a few F1 cars.

There were 9 F1 cars and half a million people (there were only 250,000 expected) there, and they ran individually just for public display, however a few of them managed to get in donuts and smoke up the wheels more than once. There were a few of the big names as well as some drivers from the past with Juan Pablo Montoya, Martin Brundle, Lucio someone (Ferrari test driver) and David Coulthard to name a few.

Aaron and Gary were a bit jealous that I managed to make my way right to the barrier when they were only about 6 deep in the field. To make matters worse, I made friends with some of the people on the way through and came away with free beers and earplugs. Following the race, Aaron, Gary and I braved the crowds and headed for Piccadilly circus for a pizza before heading home.

A bit of a London life catch up

Soho for Dinner with the Grandparents(Carmens)
It was great to see my Nan and Granddad while they were passing through on some more of their travels (I swear I’ll never catch up)! They’ve just come through China, Mongolia, Siberia, Russia, Paris etc etc on the Trans-Siberian train. Justine (my auntie) and I organised to head out for dinner in Soho (Chinatown) which is in the centre of London. We chose a Chinese restaurant from the hundreds and spent the evening chatting about everyone’s travels and our ‘settling-in’. Nan and Granddad are off tripping round the Southwest of England for a couple of weeks before heading home, and hopefully we’ll get another chance to catch up with them before they leave the country. Walking back to the tube station, we passed Trafalgar Square – which really looks much more magical at night time than during the day.

Where do you work?
For no particular reason except we were bored, we went and had a look at each others work places and decided you guys should know as well. We are in theory pointing to our offices. Of particular joy, the other day the tube workers had a strike, they are sick of only getting paid approx £30k, working 35 hours a week. They want more, more money, 4 days a week working.. so we had to catch the bus (picture) (with the other millions of Londoners trying to get to work)

Flat life
Flat life is going well. You start to learn the really annoying habits of your flatmates (anger is building, oh yes, anger is building). Our flatmates are Kate and Richard. We had our first flat dinner last week. We are planning on having them once a month and take turn on what course we are cooking. We got the dessert, so I cooked a picture). What I didn't realise is that a Pavlova doesn't rise. I should have figured it out, as there isn't anything to rise. But I spread it out nice and thin and made a big flat meringue.

Soon we will take you on a photo-tour of our flat. But Carmens side of the bedroom is still a bombsite. We got a computer desk last week for £30, which I skilfully managed to assemble. From pieces to table in two minutes flat.

Ha ha England

Well, England is out of the Euro 2004 here now, and man do they bitch and complain about it. I swear there whole society revolves around soccer (sorry 'Football') and the pub, preferably together. One of my work collegues should be quoted for saying, 'England loves to lose, it's what we do best! We are just waiting for Tim Henman to be out of Wimbledon and for someone to take the Rugby World Cup back off us...'

Anyhow, thought this picture was pretty good... The England rugby tour to NZ and Oz is something else, the English would prefer we don't mention.

In Need of YOUR Help!

Great to see people leaving comments and filling in our guest book. If you haven't already, get in there!!! Also, note that you can view old entries that have slipped off the bottom of the screen in the 'Categories' and 'Archives' sections on the right of this page.

Now that we are semi-settled, the next exciting bit is TRAVEL. I'm after suggestions or ideas or tours or websites that might help us narrow down the best places to visit to start with (keeping in mind that the money situation is still pretty tight)...

So post your comments with advice or stories of where you've been before or where you are dying to go (that way we can post photos and stories and make you insanely jealous...) and hopefully we will have some good travel stories coming your way soon!

The Flat Hunt Saga

Well it's Monday again and come tomorrow, we will have been here 2 weeks. There is good and bad news (isn't there always). The good news is that we have found ourselves a new home, so we can stop taking over Gary's study and having to make ourselves scarce for his romantic interludes. The bad news (which will hopefully soon be resurrected) is that British people seem to have a hard time recognising our talent and hence, giving us a job.

Saturday was spent in a state of confusion as we were continuously late in getting to appointments to see flats. Now, I can tell you first hand that when you hear horror stories of peole living in flats with a billion other people, and only 2 feet on either side of the bed - they aren't joking! Before looking at these places, we'd politely declined about half a dozen others that involved living with more than 5 other people.

On the way to the first flat we looked at, Aaron almost got mugged in broad daylight by some guy who asked him if he could give two 10p for a 20p. Aaron has learned a very important rule about trusting big, black, homeless, scary looking guys. The flat itself, was ok I guess. Two reasonable sized bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, but it was wildly obvious that the inhabitants were a bunch of hippies, and when we asked about local shopping facilities - the girl pointed out the 'After-hours' (kiwi translation: liquor store). We walked back to the train shaking our heads at each other (and Aaron kept his wallet tightly closed).

The second place, the girl never showed up to meet us at the tube station, so we had a brief look about the area - the conversion of balconies into rooms and the bars on the ground floor windows put us off that one. Oh, and the graffiti on EVERYTHING!

A friend of a friend of Gary's was next on the list. Aaron had already talked to her on the phone, and said she sounded pretty cool, but the proof is in seeing the place. It was such a relief to see that the place was normal and actually really really nice, as was Kate. It is a 4 story terrace house, with a self-contained flat on the ground floor, and 3 bedrooms in the top 3 floors. The kitchen and bathroom are less than a year old, and it has a backyard perfect for BBQ's. Our room is pretty big, and we'll post photos later in the week. Kate also has all the episodes of 'Sex in the City' and 'Friends' on VCR, so I'm set...

After promising Kate that we were pretty much sold, we thought it was only fair to show up at the last flat we'd arranged to see. Afterall, we were only a little over 2 hours late. Daisy, 'a 45 year old, spiritual lady' who was most worried about the 'vibes' she got off her soon to be inhabitants managed to talk to us for about 2 hours and take us on a tour of the town in her tiny little car. Her definition of a double bedroom was a bit of a stretch, yes there was a double bed in the room, but god knows how they got it in. The kitchen was the size of my wardrobe, and Aaron hit his head on the windchime thingys hanging over every door.

By this time it was 4ish, and we hadn't even got around to having lunch. We jumped on the train and texted Kate to confirm, before heading all the way home to Staines on the train.