Fri, 18 Apr 2003

author Tim	location Somewhere over Europe
posted 17:11 EEST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Off to Heathrow ( 6 photos )
The train to Heathrow was reasonable, if slow, and upon arrival we faced no huge queues to check in. Worked out quite well, actually.
We had a bit of a look around the shops before deciding that there wasn't really anything of great use there, but we are probably going to get some extremely cheap booze on the plane which will be a bonus - Turkey is cheap, so we need to take advantage of that after England!
Soon enough it was time to board our flight to Turkey!

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 12:37 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Back in the Big Smoke ( No photos )
Now that we are settled a little back into work in London, it's almost to time up-root and travel to Turkey.
We are flying Turkish Airlines on-stop from London Heathrow. Our flight leaves at 11:45am tomorrow (18/04/03), and should take four hours or so.
From the 22nd April, we are on an organised tour with On the Go Tours, the local contact for which is Andrew Bailey, Fez Tours, +90 212 516 9024. We have also registered with the Australian Consulate just in case.
Here's a few more interesting Turkey-related links: Turkish Travel Planner, Australian Embassy, Turkey, and The Visit Gallipoli Page, which has information on the Dawn Service we will be attending.
Pretty exciting time for us to get to get going once again! After this trip we will have a month and a half or so in which to work hard before throwing it all in and travelling.

In other news, Percy had a nice visit from someone with a white vehicle, the result of which was some rather unpleasant scratches down his side. The evening we discovered that (Tuesday), we drove him out to Les and Pearl's, where he is now resting in the driveway. I just received an email from them saying that they have been kind enough to polish the majority of the scratches off! Thank You Both!
So he will stay there, while Rosie is living with friend from work Alwin, who drove her home from work the other morning (after I had driven her in through the rush-hour London traffic!), and almost kept going to Dover! He was pretty nostalgic, since he has done the combi tour thing before and wanted to keep going! He resisted, however, and that brings to two the number of vehicles now parked relatively safely at friend's places, on opposite sides of London for the duration of our Turkey trip.
The weather in London is stupid at the moment, I think today is the first day since we arrived back in August where the London temperature, at 22 degrees, is higher than the temperature reported in Sydney (18 last I checked)!! I actually didn't wear my coat to work for the first time!
I have re-signed my contract here through until the middle of June now, and there are people confirmed to take our room at Cricklewood, so that means the only outstanding issue is to find a buyer for Percy when we return from Turkey. Liz aims to just get as much work as she can handle from the Nurse Bank at her current hospital, since now that she has "proven" herself there seems to be plenty on offer.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 19:26 BST 16/04/03	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Back in England ( 1 photo )
(Continued from Netherlands 1)
I had expected to see more signs reminding you which side of the road to drive on once back in Dover, but you just sort of had to work it out. We managed ok, my brain more than a little confused, but no major problems as we now had to check competely different blind spots for passing cars.
Only one stop on the way back to Cricklewood, before we arrived home fairly early, got all of our gear out of Rosie, locked her up good and tight, demolished some food and retired to bed.

What an adventure. We are both very keen for more travel, both to Turkey on Friday an dour big Europe trip, starting mid-June. We'll keep you posted.

author Tim	location Nieuwe Brugsteeg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
posted 16:30 CEST 12/04/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Departing England ( 3 photos )
A busy last few days have seen us work work work until Thursday, by which time we were both very keen to get on the road.
No problems at all on the flight over here, starting on Friday with a Thameslink train up to London Luton airport (London has four or five airports all around it), which was a pleasant way to spend the morning. It's always strange to go the other way on the train line you use every day.
After a few phone calls from my work asking questions I didn't really want to answer (I'm trying to be on holidays here guys!!), we arrived at Luton Airport Parkway station. From there, we got on to a shuttle bus to the airport itself.
By this stage, we realised just how useful the backpack/rucksack we bought the other week is. We fitted everything into it (it has a main pack and a zip-on "daypack" which is a smaller pack which can be separated), and strapped me into it, and that's all we have! A great change from the lugging-around of suitcases we started out with. The only thing we have forgotten to bring was a comb/brush, but that has now been replaced.
So, this big pack of ours is much easier to take on and off trains, buses, etc. At the airport we purchased a Europe road atlas so that we could find our way back to Calais with the van (more later!), and Liz found a replacement for her broken hand-bag she liked, but decided against it.
We had to pay attention to the screens in the terminals as there was no obvious way of knowing where to go, but we managed it the end.
The flight on EasyJet airlines was just fine, with very tight security. As evident by the police with assault rifles wandering around the airport which Liz found in her face as she turned around! OK, not quite in her face but scary enough. We half-expected to find TV cameras there, since that is one of the airports where they film that TV documentary/soap/reality show Airline, but no such luck.
Eventaully we were off to The Netherlands!

author Tim	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 08:06 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Travel Plans Update ( No photos )

Well, I tried to get Liz to do the weekend away updates, but she had a headache last night and I am taking the morning off work, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me again!
Some general news:

• Some nice person decided that Percy only really needs two hubcaps, so decided to relieve him of the other two. How considerate! The ad to sell him goes in to Loot today, so fingers crossed.
• We are on-track to pick up his replacement this coming weekend in Amsterdam, which should be great fun. Driving a Left-Hand drive vehicle for the first time ever on the right side of the road, then coming across the channel and putting it back on the left side of the road should do wonders for our poor little brains.
• Liz has been quite sick on and off but is generally on the mend now. Neither of us are 100%, but it was amazing to go away from the London smog for a weekend and see how much better it felt. We look forward to moving on permanently.
• The weather here is strange now - some days it makes it to eighteen degrees(!), but then a biting wind comes along to remind you of where you are. Still wearing our coats most places, along with beanies, scarves and gloves. I am still constantly amazed at how little rain we have seen - quite contrary to the stereo-type.
• The sun rises before seven and doesn't set until nearly eight - it will be interesting to experience how that plays out during summer. It is strange now working twelve hour days and experiencing daylight at both ends!
• I am about to re-sign a contract which will end on the 13th June 2003, so that is when we can up-root and drive back across the channel! Nice to finally have a date to put in our itinerary.

author Tim	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 08:22 BST 08/04/03	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Back to London ( No photos )
(Continued from Essex and East Anglia)
Straight back to London (well, with a few nice detours off some side-roads through forests and the like - motorways are quite boring ways to travel), we dropped in to our old house to check for mail (none), and then came back to our little room in Cricklewood.
Liz had missed a call from Meaghan, so she rang her back and they chatted as we went up the road for some take-away Chinese for dinner. We eventually crashed in bed, somehow exhausted after all the excitement.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 12:35 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

April Fools ( No photos )
Haven't found any really silly jokes yet, bit of a let-down really. They don't seem to get on board with the jokes as much as they do back home.
So, where are we? I have just sent off the email to The Netherlands picking a Volkswagen Bus for us to drive at long last! I'll post details later once they are confirmed, but it should be quite a nice little machine.
Liz seems better this week and now as a "line" of work in an Endoscopy ward which she seems to being enjoying. She was working with four other Aussie girls in the ward yesterday, so seemed to fit in well.

As plans form for this weekend, we are aiming to drive out to Les and Pearls at Hornchurch late on Friday night, then head up to stay at the Tower Cottage Bed and Breakfast in the little coastal village of Winterton, on the coast in Norwich on Saturday night after having a decent look around, before heading back inland to see Sunday's racing action at Snetterton.
I am on nights next week, which should do my body clock lots of damage.
[We journeyed to Essex and East Anglia that weekend.]

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 12:35 GMT 01/04/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Hyde Park and Kensington ( 38 photos )
Sunday we awoke and decided that our faithful tome Eccentric London was again the thing to read, aiming for a walk around Kensington via Hyde Park.
We got the 16 bus in to Marble Arch from just across the road from our front door(!), before walking through Hyde Park towards Kensington. This nice wander took in Speaker's Corner (complete with a pro-war Aussie rambling away much more as a tourist attraction than being taken seriously), a nice cafeteria by the Serpentine River and the Serpentine Gallery, which was displaying a modern-art exhibiton. Next was the completely over-the-top Albert Memorial, which really defies description, sticking out amid a sea of trees in a city of grey.
What amazed me was the sheer size of the park - it took a good half hour of admittedly random wandering to get across it, and there are so many different areas to see - the river, wide walks, trees, planted areas, and even keen sun-starved British on deck-chairs!
So we had a great walk around the park and Kensington in general, taking in various streets with massive four-story mansions and price-tags well into the tens of millions of pounds, some nice parklands, and of course the occasional cosy little pub.
But far and away the highlight was a place we would never have found with out the book - the extraordinary Leighton House Museum. Lord Leighton was an artist of great talent and eccentric taste, and both are displayed well in his old home. The central focus is the amazing dome room (see photo on linked page), complete with fountain.
Suprisingly for London, entry was totally free, but unfortunately no photography was permitted.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 12:35 GMT 01/04/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

House Party ( No photos )
We decided to take it easy on the weekend, involving a very slow Saturday, terminated with an impromptu house party with all residents present! Was a great time as we cranked up the music and got to know our house-mates quite a bit better.

Liz has been quite sick this past week, meaning that she stayed at home, missing out on most of her shifts. SO annoying that she has had no work for so long and now that she has some, she gets sick!

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 18:51 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Plans ( No photos )
Upon waking up this morning, Liz decided that her sore throat and the lack of sleep that had caused was too much to make it to work.

Plans are shaping up for the future - we are organising a trip up to the one remaining part of England we haven't seen - East Anglia. This has worked out well as Greg from work is racing cars up there that weekend just outside of Norwich at Snetterton. We aim to stop at long-time family friends Les and Pearl's place for the night on Friday night before having a decent look around the area.
For the weekend after that, our flights to Amsterdam are booked (the beauty of the Thameslink train near us is that it goes straight to Luton airport in about 30 mins!), and we are still trying to finalise the purchase of a kombi and how we are to get back (probably on a ferry).
Then the weekend after that, we are off Turkey for two weeks, US bombing patterns and international relations permitting.
I hope to have another couple of months work after we return, and that leaves us just in the middle of June, when we want to hit the road for Europe!

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 18:51 GMT 25/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Hard Work for One of Us ( No photos )
Monday saw us both working twelve hour days, Liz much harder as I am not doing much at work at the moment, so she is feeling pretty wrecked.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 18:51 GMT 25/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Work on a Sunday ( No photos )
Sunday morning was a little slow as the true scale of the previous night dawned on us, but no rest for the wicked as we were awoken to the sound of my mobile ringing - being called into work! Aaaaargh! So we piled into Percy (yes, Liz came too, complete with dark glasses), and drove into work. I was only there for three hours, during which Liz had a good look around the very busy Spittalfields markets, coming away with some great olives, cheese, a chicken, general lunch stuffs and a plant for our room.
My laptop power-supply has been playing up recently, and the sparks it was emitting, although colourful, were enough to convince me that one of the cables needed replacing. The computer market near work came to the rescue as Liz physically restrained me from buying more goodies. Damage - £4.
Most of the afternoon was spent basting and preparing our huge chicken for roast dinner (yum!), relaxing on the lounge, chatting to house mates and then finally watching a video. All that excitement was enough as we headed to bed very early in preparation for our big week.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 18:51 GMT 25/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Camden, Mill Hill East, The Crown ( 29 photos )
After first heading down to the parking shop to get some more "visitors passes" which let Percy have a place to sleep (we have decided to just keep getting these as it is much less hassle than trying to get a proper resident's permit and will probably work out the same cost), we then drove him back and parked him, noting where the previous body damage had been fixed during the week.
Down to the local hairdressers for a much needed pair of haircuts, where the rude woman promptly ignored pretty much everything I had asked for and cut lots more off than I wanted before I realised what she was doing. Oh well, it will grow back.
On the Thameslink to Camden Town (changing at Kentish Town), we spent the morning avoiding the advances of body piercers, chinese food sellers and other more questionable things as we took in the over-dose of culture that is Camden Markets.
We had been aiming to attend a beer festival that day, but the organisers organised a beer festival to finish during the day on Friday. Is it just me or is there something fundamentally wrong with that? So instead, we continued our wanderings before heading home.
For a couple of pretty weak reasons, we decided to head up to the sort-of-end-of-the-line tube station at Mill Hill East. Firstly, it was just something we wanted to be able to say that we had, but secondly, we wanted to pass over the highest viaduct in the tube system, which was actually fairly un-impressive.
Ten minutes sitting at the end of the tube line (note new haircut) later, we rattled back south, changed at Kentish Town en-route to Cricklewood.
Deciding to make up for the lack of the beer festival, we organised for Joel to come to The Crown (pub across the road) for a few drinks, arriving just in time to watch Liz and I eat our dinner after watching Die Another Day on the laptop.
This was the first time we actually had a look around the place properly, and we hadn't realised how big it was. There were two different private parties upstairs (we accidentally wandered into one and would have stayed but it was too crowded). We eventually got comfortable in some huge chairs in the back room where a band was setting up.
To summarise, we had a great night dancing to well-played pub-rock/pop music played by two guitarist/vocalists (with Joel and myself both doing cameo performances on tamborine!), and made some new friends including one Scotsman from Falkirk (we have been there - that's where that silly wheel thing is) who would have been hard to understand even if he had he had not been drinking since 7am, but considering that he had...
Strangely enough, they didn't close until 1am or so which was not at all what we were expecting - and very strange considering we have been tucked into bed early for many months now.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 18:51 GMT 25/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Proof that Liz is Working! ( No photos )
WOW - Isn't she gorgeous?! ;) She actually commented that that uniform would actually have no pants back home - their dresses are as long as that blue top is!
So despite the fact that she had all the good intentions in the world, she didn't make it today and has called in sick for tomorrow due to a sore-throat and generally not feeling well. Seems to be a strange bug going around once again.
Most of the week progressed quickly, just lots of work until the weekend. Friday night we pretty much stayed in and relaxed, which left us in a strangely happy and ready-to-do-something mood on Saturday morning.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 16:26 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Work for Liz! ( 1 photo )
The good news for the moment is that Liz has found some work! They have contacted her from the Royal Free Hospital, and she is working twelve hours today and eight hours a day for the rest of the week! Congratulations to her, this has been a long time coming. They claim to be able to give her a few month's guaranteed work starting real soon, but for now she's out doing what she intended to be doing many months ago, and that's a great thing.
As you will be able to see on the Itinerary page, plans for our Amsterdam trip are all but finalised. Should be a great weekend away.
My desire to travel has been renewed thanks to Greg from work bringing in his Europe Road Atlas where he plotted his trip all around Europe via Kombi a couple of years back. Plenty of advice, which is exactly what we need.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 16:26 GMT 18/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

St Patrick's Day ( No photos )
Monday was St Patrick's day, where my Irish boss insisted that I go down to the pub for a pint or two of Guiness. Who was I to say no? There was plenty going on at the local pubs as well that evening, but tiredness overcame us as we ate dinner and chatted to Sarah, one of our housemates.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 16:26 GMT 18/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Hampstead Gardens ( 28 photos )
On Sunday, all this running-around was beginning to take its toll on my 60-hour-a-week worked body, so it was decided that a nice leisurely stroll around the nearby Hampstead Gardens, which are a part of the massive Hampstead Heath was in order. Spring has come on amazingly fast here, with lots of pretty colours peeping through.
Of course, while we were there we had a fantastic lunch at the Bull and Bush pub, before feeling like little kids as we lined up for the Ice-Cream van. No, they aren't called Mr Whippy vans here.
Liz went for a walk again that afternoon, as I processed some photos, before we enjoyed dinner in.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

A Move and Lots More ( 28 photos )
Ok, so seeing this hasn't been updated for quite a while, this is going to be a nice long section. Have you got a cup of tea next to you? (This is what happens when you are in England too long...you become addicted to tea, and you can't function without it.)

[ Liz's Mega-update has been split into the individual days ]

Our travel plans are currently moving along quite nicely. Our trip to Turkey is all booked and payed for, and we head off there in about a month. We are also in the middle of planning a trip to Amsterdam to meet up with Tim's friend Sebastian (he came out from Germany as an exchange student and went to Sydney Tech) and his girlfriend Jessi. As well as lots of getting to know each other, and seeing the sites of Amsterdam, Tim and I are trying to purchase a Kombi from a company near Amsterdam, and then drive it back to London. All of this stuff has to happen within a few days due to Tim's work, and we can't wait to get there and explore the place. At the moment, we are probably going to Amsterdam about the 11th, 12th and 13th of April, and coming home for a few days before heading off to Turkey.
So, how was all that? I have probably even left stuff out, and if so I'll add a bit more later on. Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end :)

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 16:26 GMT 18/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Greenwich ( 37 photos )
Now that Liz has easily taken the cake for the longest website update in history, I'm back to tell you about our weekend and how this week is shaping up - rather well! Saturday we awoke and were once again living the care-free life, wondering just what to do with ourselves. So many options! After the success of last time, we once again took a walk as recommended in our Eccentric London book (thanks Peter Bowyer for this - we're getting lots of use out of it!).
This time we went down to Greenwich. Famous as the Greenwich in "Greenwich Mean Time", Liz dutifully stood with a foot in either hemisphere (that's east and west, not north and south!) as part of our view around the place.
Since there's quite a lot to do, we decided that since it was such a nice day, we would do all the outside things, and leave the interesting things for the far more common days when it is raining cats and dogs.
We walked from our new home down to the nearest tube station at Kilburn, where we jumped on the Jubilee line. This is a line which has only recently been extended, and now offers a great fast trip across London.
We got off at the huge and truly impressive Canary Wharf station, which has won lots of design awards, before going on the Docklands Light Railway. This was Liz's first trip on this tram-like thing which operates without a driver, and sitting right at the front as we plunge at 60mph into a black tunnel (no headlights needed, of course), it's great fun. The DLR took us down to Greenwich station where we aimed to start our walk, but promptly got lost straight from the station!
Improvising our way around, our walk eventually took in plenty of sites around Greenwich, including the impressive and history-rich St Alfege Church, the family-run for many years Goddard's Pie House (where we grabbed some great hot fruit pies), the Cutty Sark, and quite a few different market areas.
We walked through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel across to the Isle of Dogs, which our guidebook pointed out has a heavily-reinforced section at the North end where a German bomb struck it in World-War II. The dripping part in the middle didn't inspire a lot of confidence either. But there is a lift at each end which is still operated by a man who presses the buttons for you! Don't see that very often.
The view South from the Isle of Dogs towards Greenwich is really breath-taking, especially on a great day like we had. See the view of the Royal Naval College, for example.
We went quickly back through the tunnel before heading along the waterfront looking at the great little pubs and old almshouses. Great views back towards the Millennuim Dome as well, even though it's not used for anything.
Wandering then South-ward, we entered Greenwich park where there was a great big sundial smack-bang on the meridian which was actually fairly accurate.
Ambling through the chilly breeze up on top of the hill, we battled the crowds near the Old Royal Observatory to see the "offical" place where time and location start on the planet, as well as the "offical" set of imperial measures, should you ever want to use such a thing. The huge numbers of people there discouraged us from entering, and we still had a bit of wandering around to do anyway!
Passing back through the pack, we turned down the offers of the London Fan Museum (that's fans as in hand-held, wave back-and-forth to cool yourself fans) on our way to grab those fruit pies and check out some last bits of markets before returning to the station, stopping to check some notably strange architecture along the way.
There are a few strange shops down there, including the "Junk Shop", which is very accurately named, and a couple of places specialising in strange, best-forgotten 50s-80s memorabilia that I had to literally drag Liz out of. "No Liz, we don't need those pink flamingo lights, and perhaps we can wait until after we buy a kombi to get the fluffy dice!"
Back in Cricklewood, we were walking home and walked past a video shop we had not previously noted. Choosing a DVD for the night, we were then amazed as the young French lad showed us how we can hire a movie twenty-four hours a day by using an atm-style machine out the front, which takes credit off our card and spits out the DVD! Returns can similarly be done any time, meaning we only pay for six hours' hire - 99p a movie. That's very cheap for anything over here.
So, we settled down with Nicole and Carlo to watch 40 Days and 40 Nights, which was a nice relaxing evening.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Hi Joel ( No photos )
On Friday I dropped Meaghan off at her work before heading home. Later that night I spent 35 minutes standing in the freezing cold waiting for the train before heading into town to meet up with Tim, have dinner and then meet up with Joel who arrived out here just over a week ago.
We went and found a nice little pub near Charing Cross, and spent the evening catching up and voicing various travel plans.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Meaghan's Again ( No photos )
On Thursday, I jumped in the car and headed up to Meaghan's Grandma's house in Milton Keynes. I had a much better trip up there this time, and got there in under an hour, without getting lost or stuck in traffic. Meaghan and I spent the morning doing a bit of shopping and then we went for lunch before heading back to her Grandma's for a bit. That night we went out with some of Meaghan's friends to one of the local pubs.
I also received a phone call in the afternoon from the Royal Free Hospital offering me a job in their endoscopy unit (using special cameras to look inside various body orifices) for a few months. I used to do this at my old work, so it wouldn't be an entirely new thing, but it would be very good experience. It is not definite yet, so I will keep you posted. Hopefully it will all work out, because it sounds perfect.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Scratched Car! ( No photos )
On Wednesday I went to pick the car up from its service. I payed up the £250 and went out to the car - to discover a scratch in the drivers door, and chunks missing out of the plastic trim. After paying that much money, I wasn't terribly impressed, so I went back inside to complain. Someone came out and looked at the damage, and tried to tell me it looked like the scratch had been there for quite a while. I was furious, because I guess he thought I might back down and not make them repair it. Anyway, he said he would call me to arrange a bodywork appointment, which he never did. I got Tim to call the garage yesterday to find out what was going on, and they tried to suggest we had to pay to have it fixed! So now, I am taking the car back up there tomorrow to have it fixed, and probably to argue with them that I will not be paying for the repair.
Anyway, the rest of my day was spent looking for more work, and being a bit lazy and reading on the lounge for a few hours :)

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Some Work for Liz ( No photos )
On Tuesday I had a shift (!) at the Harley Medical Group - a private clinic near Oxford Street. They have one operating theatre, and seemed to specialse in plastic surgery. The staff were really nice, and despite being nervous, I had a great day. And as a bonus I got to see liposuction for the first time! Sorry, you probably arn't quite as excited about that as I am, so I won't go into details. They also payed for my lunch - simply because they had more than two patients that morning. Sweet! I am really hoping that I get a few more shifts there.
After work I headed off to the Royal Free Hospital At Hampstead because I have been declared disease free (see previous entry), and I am now officially on their nurse bank. This is like a casual pool, where they just send me anywhere in the hospital that requires a nurse, so I am hoping to get work from that (again, more about that in a bit!). I was supposed to pick up my uniform and id card, but there were no id cards left, which meant I couldn't get a uniform either, so I went home.
Once I got to our front door, I found I couldn't get in. There are three locks on the door, and the deadlock isn't working (if you shoulder barge the door, it will open), so at the moment we are also locking the bottom lock. For some reason my key wasn't working and I couldn't get the door open. No-one was home, so I did what any sensible aussie would do, and headed across the road to the pub, to wait for someone to arrive home. I had a glass of wine, read the paper and chatted to some old Irish guy at the bar, before heading home to find that now the front door miraculously opened (?).

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Percy Gets a Service ( No photos )
On Monday, Tim headed off for another week of twelve hour days, and I took Percy up the road for a well deserved service. The car has done about twelve thousand miles since we bought it last September. Not bad considering the total milage is less than thirty-five thousand and the car is about eight years old.
The rest of my day was spent doing bits and pieces like looking for work and changing our address with various people.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

London Transport Museum Depot ( 31 photos )
On Sunday, we caught the ThamesLink (an overland train), from just near our house, into the city, and we went to The London Transport Museum Depot. This is a huge warehouse where they put all the old tube trains and double decker buses and various bits of transport memorabilia that doesn't fit in the actual museum itself. The Depot is only open to the public a few times a year, so we were lucky that we were around on one of the days it was open.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around old tube carriages (build in the 1930's, or even older), old buses that had to be hand cranked, models of what the tube system looks like underground, and hundreds of old signs from all the tube stations.

Next we headed to Earl's Court for some lunch at the Earl's Court Tavern, and then we met up with Marty who works in nearby Trekmate (similar to Kathmandu). We then became the proud new owners of a rucksack, complete with daypack and also a moneybelt. We came out here with two large suitcases and one medium sized backpack, but have decided that we need a larger pack for our trip to Turkey and Amsterdam (more about that in a bit), and so we finally got around to making a purchase.
We headed home and spent the evening making Nachos and watching TV.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Moving Day! ( 2 photos )
Saturday was Moving Day, and we were both so happy to be going to our new home. It took us about an hour to pack up all our possessions and we even managed to cram it all into Percy in one load. And then before we knew it we were on our way to our new place.
Our new home is only about five minutes drive from our old one, but due to major road works and a big construction site across the road from our front door, it took us about half an hour to get there, but you still couldn't have wiped the grins off our faces.
Parking is a problem. You have to have a permit, or you have to park an hours walk away. So we did what any sane person would do and triple parked illegally in the carpark behind our house. Due to the big menacing signs all around saying any cars discovered illegally parked would be clamped, one of us stayed with the car, while the other rushed around the corner to the front door with an armload of stuff.
Having emptied the car, we went and parked it slightly more legally (but still not quite legally), and went inside to meet and greet the rest of the household. Its turns out, that even though there are meant to be about nine people living here, a couple are off traveling, and everyone else is hardly ever here.
And now, about the house:
We live on a very busy and very noisy main road. There is a huge construction site across the street, and the traffic is constantly heavy due to major roadworks going on. Luckily, our bedroom is at the very back of the house, so we don't hear any noise when we are in there. And it's quite pleasant to fall asleep feeling the house rock as the buses roar by!
We are surrounded by shops and fast food and pubs. McDonalds is across the street, Burger King is two doors up, there is a Kebab shop either side of us, and KFC just up a few doors on the other side of the road. As for pubs, there are about five or six within two minutes walk. We have only been to one of the pubs...it is called The Crown, and is just across the road, and its really nice. Big comfy lounges, a roaring fireplace and lots of charm.
We also have a supermarket across the road next to the pub,. and another one just around the corner. There are about five butchers, and loads of stalls selling fresh fruit and veg, so with all that, I don't think we are ever likely to go hungry.
We have mostly resisted all the fast food...one kebab on our first night here (they are made differently over here - not all rolled up, but in an open piece of bread, out of which the contents always fall onto your nice clean clothes), and I had some greasy chicken the other night.
Our bedroom is a bit smaller than our last one, and there is a lot less storage space, so I went out this week and found a bookcase kit Ikea-type thing (only not from Ikea). Tim and I put it together when he got home from work that night, and I am still suprised that it lasted 24 hours, let alone nearly a week. It has a very dangerous lean on it, but I can't work out if thats more because the bedroom floor is a bit uneven or if the bookcase is really that dodgy. But it should last us a few months until we head off again.
This house is quite a bit bigger than the old one (we now have two bathrooms instead of just the one - will come in handy if all nine of us are actually ever home at the same time, and everyone here is really friendly. One of the girls (and also her friend that is currently dossing here) are both nurses, and they have been really helpful suggesting a couple of things I can do to get some more work. Everyone seems much more relaxed here, and we are both very happy to have moved to such a nice household.
Right, so we had made it to our new home, and we had now met a most people in the house - a mix of Aussies and Kiwis, (Carlo and Nicole, who are married, Maddy, who we saw for about five seconds before she ran out the door to go travelling, John, Sarah, and Lucinda, who is dossing), so our next mission was to get our car legally parked. We spent a while locating Carlo (this house really is quite big), and then went with him for a short drive to The Parking Shop, where we payed for a booklet of visitor parking permits. We can't apply for a permanent parking permit until we have signed the lease, and we are still waiting for the landlord to turn up so we can do that.
We spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking most of our stuff, realising that our new bed is bigger than the old one, going out and buying a new bottom sheet, and then cooking dinner a bit later on.
After dinner we decided to go and visit the pub across the road (with the comfy lounges), and whiled the evening away chatting and enjoying a couple of drinks.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, London, England
posted 09:43 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Tim: Left to fend for myself ( No photos )
Liz is up in Milton Keynes visiting Meaghan. She drove up yesterday morning, got stuck in traffic on the M1 for three hours (ouch), and spent the night there last night.
I don't know exactly what she has been doing, but I got a call late last night where it sounded like the two of them had been having a celebratory night our together. And that was only 9pm! It must be that silly 11pm closing time that is the law here.
She should be back down here today some time, and is planning to come in and meet me after work, when I intend to have a relaxing time after eighty-plus hours work in the last nine days.
We are aiming to move to our new place tomorrow, which should keep us busy. We don't actually have a parking permit yet so not sure how we will handle that one.
This morning I noticed that Blackalicious are doing their thing at the Jazz Cafe in Camden tomorrow evening. We haven't been out to anything like this for a while so I'll see if I can convince Liz to come along. That is assuming, of course, that the move goes well.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Liz: Having a Ball! ( No photos )
On Friday, Meaghan and I awoke feeling slightly worse for wear, before we headed back up to Meaghan's work for her next shift, and then I headed back down to London.
The drive home was almost as bad as the trip up there. The weather was shocking (I know, I should expect that in England), and most of the way home the rain was so heavy that it was virtually impossible to see the car just in front of me. I made it safely home with all my limbs intact, and not a scratch on the car (more to come about that in a bit...), and spent the rest of the day being lazy and watching TV, only moving when food supplies were desperately needed.
Tim arrived home from work late that night, and we went up to the local chain pub for dinner and to try and remember what each other looked like because we had hardly seen each other all week.

author Liz	location Cricklewood, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT 16/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

A Move and Lots More ( No photos )
I am going right back to Thursday 6th March, which was when I was up in Milton Keynes with Meaghan. My trip up there took 3 hours longer than it should have due to a couple of accidents, and also because I got lost in Milton Keynes :) Anyway, I eventually arrived at Meaghan's place of work (a coffee shop in a building where you can do indoor skiing!), and spent my afternoon writing in my journal, reading the paper, writing a letter, and of course, drinking copious amounts of tea.
After Meaghan finished work, we went shopping, and then for a few drinks. Dinner was next, followed by a few more drinks and then I was very excited to have my first ride home in a black taxi (I love those things and if I could I would buy one and ship it home, but a certain someone says I'm not allowed to...meanie).

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 12:18 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Feeling a Little Off ( No photos )
Not quite sure what the actual problem is, but both Liz and I have stomach bugs at the moment, hers seemingly worse than mine. A few others at work report similar symptoms so it seems like it is just something going around.
Thought I'd get the bad news out of the way first - most everything else is going quite well. Liz has been offered a shift here and there, and is currently getting some blood tests done. Apparently they think the Australian nurses are going to bring all sorts of horrible diseases over here. And here was me thinking they just wanted to bring their skills over...
I am now doing twelve hour days, still working in the same place. That's a lot of work, and it's making me fairly tired of course. Liz is trotting around the place tidying up various loose ends.
After not having any bank account at all for a long time, we now have two - one each. Wonderful.
Other than that, there's not a great deal of news. We are planning on moving to our new house on this coming weekend, which will be interesting due to the fact that it is right on a high street, and hence parking is at a premium. We have to apply for a parking permit for Percy.
Looking slightly longer-term, I am contracted here at work until the 18th of April, just in time for our ANZAC trip. After we return from that, we will probably be looking for a Kombi van (if not earlier), in which we plan to drive across to France and continue our exploration of this side of the planet in April-May.
Speaking of the ANZAC trip, Liz has been reading up on Turkish food in the book she got for her birthday, and as such is really keen to get moving. We will be able to come back and talk to the lads at Brothers Kebabs in their own language too - her research is coming along well!
Oh, and apologies to those who couldn't get the email link to work to wish Liz well for her birthday - I forgot to mention that it probably wouldn't work for those who use Hotmail or similar to access their email.
We could have predicted it. Just when we want to send money home to pay off rising credit card bills and HECS, the exchange rate goes completely in the wrong direction and we stand to loose hundereds. Annoying Australian economy!

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 12:18 GMT 04/03/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Hi Again Meags ( 10 photos )
We drove up to Milton Keynes to visit Meaghan, who is once again living with her Grandma. We went down to a great little pub on the river-side for some lunch, and also had a couple of great walks around the area.
We then went back to the massive Milton Keynes shopping centre for a relaxing coffee and a flip through our Scotland photos, which I have recently been scanning in on Ryan's scanner. Will aim to put some up here soon, especially ones from Orkney.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:49 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Some Great News! ( No photos )
Hearty congratulations to my brother Peter and his girlfriend Inshirah who have announced that they are engaged to be married! The news came through whilst on night-shift this week, and it has taken a little while to sink in. Tentative plans put the date somewhere in November, so perhaps we now have a definite end-date for our Europe trip.

The work-all night thing finally caught up to me, and much of the weekend was spent asleep. I'm back on day shifts now which aren't so bad.
It has been back to the drudgery this week a little, although things are looking up for Liz as she now has two shifts this week, the first of which is tomorrow. They are once again at the Charing Cross hospital (nowhere near Charing Cross), and are great to get her out and doing things. She has also applied with a few other agencies, and has two interviews this week. Now she's a busy girl!
We are probably planning on moving either this weekend or next week, since we have agreed to start paying rent at the new place. The person we are taking the room off has been quite kind in holding it for us for this long, plus we are pretty keen to get out of the current place.
Our interest in getting up and travelling again has been renewed, and tentative plans for selling Percy and obtaining a Kombi called "Ethel" (can't quite remember how we made up that name - it's not like we have picked one out yet!) are taking shape. We think we will try and buy one here (as in London somewhere), load it up with gear and drive over to the continent. Seems easier than attempting to ship everything over there, the trade-off being that they are quite a bit cheaper to buy over there.
We made one un-successful excursion to The Van Market on Caledonian Road, not far away from here. While it was a nice drive, and the greasy spoon breakfast was better than expected, we couldn't find the market. It was just for research anyway.
Today Liz met me in town and we caught an old Routemaster bus (my first!) down to the Strand where we trundled off to Australia House (no Kombis for sale outside there, although we hear they usually are). This journey was to find out what we have to do to vote in the up-coming state election. However, the answer we got from the officially-dressed but Aussie-speaking desk clerk was "don't need to". A little suspicious, we probed him further - "It's not like they are going be able to find you in the middle of a Brazilian forest, is it?". Well, no, but we think we might vote anyway. Turns out we can get the postal vote form online and do it that way.
After that we wandered back down the Strand, intending to work our way to the TNT (Aussie magazine over here) offices to pick up a T-shirt I ordered. Ducking into a tiny little pub squeezed between two enormous buildings that has been there for several hundered years (love this part of London), we ordered a pint while I attempted to work out where we were going. Turns out I didn't have any details with me, but Liz didn't want to budge, so we spent a little while there before jumping back on the Tube home.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:49 GMT 25/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Blackfriars Wander ( 22 photos )
I managed to surface to travel into Blackfriars for a walk around Fleet Street and surrounds, as recommended in our Eccentric London book. This gave us great views of St. Paul's Cathederal, the Old Bailey, the amazing St. Bartholemew the Great church (where Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shakespeare in Love were set), Smithfield Markets, St. Bride's (which is the model for the world's wedding cakes), and St. Clement Danes. Also, it pointed out all sorts of interesting little niches we never would have found on our own.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:49 GMT 25/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Happy Birthday Liz! ( 7 photos )
Liz's birthday was a success for the part I was awake, as she somehow managed to accrue the world's supply of chocolate, along with several other goodies. Hearty thanks to those who sent wishes, I know she appreciates hearing from you all.
In the evening, we met up with Meaghan again (hooray!), and went out for a few of those evil two-for-one cocktails at brb in Chinatown, where we were joined by Marty who is back in London for while. He has recently travelled to Spain to learn how to teach English to Spanish people, and will return there in a couple of months to continue more of the same.
He guided us to one of the cheap but decent places to eat nearby, where we had quite a good meal, all told, before he headed home, while Liz and Meaghan went back to sleep at Golders Green and I trundled off to work.

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Doctor Registration ( No photos )
Today we finalised the doctor situation by being signed up at a local clinic, as well as Liz making two trips across London to get our bank account finalised. We finally have a bank account to call our own (well, Liz's anyway), so if anyone wants to send us some pocket money, feel free! (You might consider a donation, or at least an email for Liz's birthday tomorrow).
We even got the website up to date as a group effort!

We have to recommend 1st Contact if you need a bank account in London. It took all of half an hour, no sending photocopies of things from home, no need to find proof of current address. Wish we had of known that when we first arrived here.
Now that Meaghan is back here (she's living again with her grandmother in Milton Keynes), we are planning on meeting up with her for Liz's birthday (hint, hint!) tomorrow in town somewhere, and then probably being joined by Marty for dinner.

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT 19/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

We'll be Moving House ( No photos )
Tim's body clock was trying to get back on track, and we looked at a new place to live. This is quite a long story which we won't bore people with here, but basically we will most probably be moving out of this house quite soon and into a place in nearby Cricklewood. More details to come.
We also started knocking off our long list of things which needed to be done, including registering with a local doctor (what a stupid concept - Australia is much better in this respect), travel insurance, and a bank account (since the one Tim was trying to organise through work is taking way too long). Tim off to work again in the evening.

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT 19/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Night Shift means a Day Off! ( No photos )
On Monday, Tim changed over to night shift, which meant that we had the day together - not at all what we expected on the first day of the Congestion Charge. We caught the bus in the morning to the Royal Free Hospital at Belsize Park (three tube stops back towards London), which is one of the places Liz is trying to find work. After picking up some paperwork, we stopped in a nearby swish-looking pub for a great lunch, before returning home and doing some food shopping. In the evening, Tim went off to work.

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT 19/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Work / Pub ( No photos )
After not seeing him much really (we knew that would happen, but it was good to catch up when we could), Peter left early on Sunday, and Tim had to work again, leaving Liz to go into a pub near Covent Garden with some housemates to watch a few bands play (and have a few drinks!)

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT 19/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Work / Zoo / March ( No photos )
On Saturday, Tim went off to work and Peter to the anti-war march through central London, so Liz decided to take herself to the London Zoo. Due to the freezing temperatures, most of the animals thought better of it and were hidden away in their enclosures. The zoo itself was quite a lot smaller than she expected, but she still spent most of the day there wandering around.

author Liz and Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:47 GMT 19/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Valentine's Day ( No photos )
We had a table booked at Mythos in Edgware, and started the evening a nearby cheap pub. Here we had a great time singing along to Stevie Wonder and other fun times together. The dinner itself was fantastic, and Liz is currently dribbling as she thinks about how good the food was.
Among other things, Liz gave Tim a Bill Bryson travel book for Europe, and Tim gave Liz a bracelet with little roses on it. It was a nice, simple, great night out together.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, Greater London, England
posted 13:31 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

An Imbalance of Work ( No photos )
Needless to say, I have been giving the guys at work plenty about England's soccer/football loss, and there's some great headlines here as the tabloids pull no punches against their national team.
Back in the real world, Liz is still having a lot of trouble finding work, her latest contact sounding not quite as good as she was hoping. It's so much hassle signing up with other agencies, so she is trying to avoid that if possible.
I have been lucky enough to be working plenty (yay overtime!), including one night where I was here till just after midnight, then had to be back at work at 8:30. As the deadline approaches, there's lots to do. And with the major disaster which were actually in fixing that night (no details can be published!), it drove home just how big a project this one is. The press are keeping an eye on it, with huge countdown reminders, just in case we forget.
The rest of the week has been just mostly work for me, while Liz has been out and about at the movies (she saw Chicago), attempting to volunteer some of her time at the Battersea Dogs Home (they merely regurgitated what it says on the website - that she has to fill in a form and wait), and generally exploring areas of London.
I'd really love to spend more time looking around with her, but this week work is ruling. Bad timing, what with Valentines Day tomorrow (we have a table booked at a Mediterranean restaurant in Edgware), Peter Bowyer arriving tonight to stay for three nights (he's going along to the anti-war protest in London on Saturday), and Liz's birthday on the 20th (send her birthday wishes!), this is not going to be a good time to have a go-live date.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, Greater London, England
posted 13:31 GMT 13/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Take That! ( No photos )
What a game !!! Liz and I went up to the local pub, which is adopted home to plenty of the local Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. Cheering very loudly as we watched England loose yet another sport to the Aussies. This one is a big one though - there was no way we were expected to win.
The few English who wandered around the pub looked a little scared at what would happen surrounded by so many non-England supporters, but it was all good sport in the end.

author Tim	location Spittalfields, Greater London, England
posted 13:31 GMT 13/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Camden ( 3 photos )
We set off early to have a look around Camden Markets. We weren't quite prepared for just how big this place is - stalls take over everything, and seem to be selling almost anything. Although there was an abundance of women's clothing, it was actually I who bought a T-shirt (and some cheap CDs and DVDs), with Liz showing a lot of self-control. We also puchased a light-shade, banishing the bare bulb until such time as we move on.

author Tim	location South Quay, Docklands, Greater London, England
posted 12:28 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Weekend at Work ( No photos )
So here I am, sitting at work on a Saturday, doing absolutely nothing. I'm over at our "contingency site" (which is an entire separate building, complete with duplicate computers and everything, incase the other one gets bombed. Gulp.), where I am on hand to assist with any problems which may occur as they test things.
None so far.
The (I think) final word on my contract at work is that I am staying in this job until mid-April, working almost all day shifts (due to the other UNIX guy Emmanuel wanting to work all the night shifts), with a small increase in pay. Things do tend to work themselves out in the end.

Liz has had a bad headache for most of the week, and her not being able to register with a local doctor (long story) here isn't helping that. It seems to be better today, after our big night our last night. Perhaps it was something in the Indian...
She has been chasing work a bit more, but it seems that her agency is going down the drain and hence doesn't have much work to give her. Since there is clearly lots of work out there somewhere, she has been looking into other avenues, including registering with another agency who she hopes can place her in a "line" of work. This means she works in the one place for a month or longer, but under agency conditions. Or perhaps she can get placed in a full-time position. It's all very draining on her, she's wishing she had never bothered registering in the first place.
There's a few more friends heading over here in the near future, including Joel Sarakula and Stuart Heldon, so it will be good to see some more familiar faces.

Later that day...
We are spending a night in today, getting some home-delivery with Taija and her friend Kirsty, which should prove nice and relaxing after my boss forced me to spend most of the afternoon at the nearby pub in a "team building" exercise. Who am I to resist?

author Tim	location South Quay, Docklands, Greater London, England
posted 12:28 GMT 08/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Brick Lane Curry ( 1 photo )
After work went out for a few drinks with some friends from work at the local pub "The Gun". Was a good night, and it ended up being just Liz, myself and a great guy called Mark. We had some Indian in nearby Brick Lane, where we were approcated by many hawkers trying to get us into their respective establishments by offering 25, 30 or even 40 percent off cards! What a deal!
The place we picked had none of these, but instead had good food. Not quite sure what we ate, but we are both ok today so can't have been too bad.

I was overjoyed to receive a package in the mail from my grandfather which was a "Learn to Play Harmonica" book - the perfect partner for the harminica he sent over with Margaret a while back which I have been struggling to make decent sounds out of! Not sure what the flat-mates will think of my practising, but I will attempt it all nonetheless.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 17:27 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Another week comes to a close ( 12 photos )

Most of yesterday was spent in rest after the excesses of Friday night!
Today we decided to head into London to tick off a few of the more touristy sites. First on the list was The London Dungeon, which Lonely Planet summarises as "long on gore, short on substance". We tend to agree, although the ticket price was just right as we had a two-for-one voucher. Not worth full price.
Next stop was the Shipwright's Arms pub just up the road (we were near Tower Bridge and London Bridge for most of the day) for a great cheap lunch before heading to Winston Churchill's Britain At War Experience.
This, similarly to the London Dungeon, seemed to cater more to the child's attention span than a proper museum would, as there was a lot less in it than we expected to find. However, what was there was quite engrosing - this one was worth the trip.
A walk around the area took us to a bookshop where we purchased the Lonely Planet Turkey guidebook. We have been most impressed with the Europe and Britain guides we have so far, and Liz as I write is eagerly reading all about the place.

Weather is still what they call "mild" here, which means good. In Australia that means bad. Anyway, it's better than the frozen days earlier this week - almost everything has thawed now. There is just a sad-looking pile of white debris where once the snowman stood.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 17:27 GMT 02/02/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Liz Enjoys Work, Meeting some Holladays ( 14 photos )
A mixed bag would be a good description for this week. It has been one where overall good things have happened, which is what we want, this being a holiday and all!
Liz's first shift as a qualified nurse went just fine, and she is looking forward to more. The people turned out to be quite nice and helpful, which she was dreading wouldn't be the case for an agency nurse. However, it seems that her agency is not going to be getting her a lot of work.
Possible ways forward include her adding a few more agencies to her list, or going and looking for a full-time job. It will remain to be seen what she ends up doing - she's just playing it by ear for the moment.
My previous delight at being able to work until the end of March has been turned on its head. It seems that at the end of my current contract (end Feb.), there will be a new contract to sign up. They have offered me the job, however there are a couple of little details - the pay stays the same (it wasn't fantastic to begin with, but I could have lived with just that), and the hours would change to 7pm - 3am!!
I wouldn't mind it too much (it's only for six weeks) if they were willing to give more pay, but having to get in there during the evening peak and find my way home at 3am will mean either driving in (which Percy is not insured for - back to the insurance saga again...), or getting a night bus every night.
So, I'm going to approcach my boss (who isn't the one making the offer, it's his boss) and let him know that I don't plan to accept unless the deal is sweetened at least a bit.
So this means things look a little different with regards to travelling, and we will have to be a bit more careful with what we do. However, it will all still work out in the end, as things always do!

Friday night (after I was just a little too close to a bar brawl involving my boss at the local near work), we met up with James and Andrew Holladay, and James' girlfriend Jenny. The way we know these people I think is that James and Andrew's grandmother Gladys was my Nan on my father's side's cousin. Got that? A while back they got in contact and suggested that we meet up for a meal, which we did at Ruby in the Dust, a great little restaurant in Camden.
The inevitable strangeness of dining with complete strangers was soon alleviated with the help of them being very friendly people, and the three bottles of wine before we went to the pub after didn't hurt much either. We went home at the ridiculous closing time of 11pm.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:49 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

London Grinds to a Halt ( 5 photos )
Walking back from our National Insurance interview this morning (in an original condition 50s government building, complete with loads of graffiti from those who obviously didn't get their government benefits), it started to snow. Just a little bit, but snow nonetheless. However, as I went in to work, it had stopped.
This afternoon, upon leaving work in town, I had had a look at this page, which shows in real time which tube lines have problems. Right now, it looks very bad. Every line where it goes above line in the North of London is closed.
It took me almost three hours to get home from work - a trip which took in the usual fifteen minute walk to Moorgate, then crammed onto a tube to Camden Town, change there to get crammed onto another tube to Golders Green, where the tube line comes out of the tunnel. That's as far as tubes are now going.
In good conditions, it's about a fifteen minute walk from there to home. Today it took me fourty-five minutes, slipping and sliding on the ice that covers everywhere. Not usually too much of a problem, however I injured my knee again on the weekend and it is not fully recovered.
Enough whinging from me, Ryan still isn't home and he has to drive on the icy roads, so hopefully he'll be ok.
As I mentioned, London really has ground to a halt - cars are going nowhere, motorways are closed, trains and tubes are wrecked and buses are being cancelled. As people have mentioned, all this because of two inches of snow!
The Central line is still closed and will remain that way for at least another two weeks, just about the same time that the Congestion Charge is due to start, so anyone who has to drive because they can't get a tube will have to pay for the privilege!
Sydney isn't looking so bad after all...


Now for the good news - Liz does her first shift as a fully-qualified nurse tomorrow! It's doing ward work at the Charing Cross hospital (which is nowhere near Charing Cross - it's actually near Hammersmith). However, if there's no tubes running, that will be a difficult journey to make half way across London for a few hours work. Still, it would be difficult to pull out of her first shift there, but since everyone else in London may be having the same problem.
Everyone in the house is secretly hoping that the tubes won't run tomorrow, so we can claim an extra day off!

And some more good news - we have our trip booked to Turkey! We fly Turkish Airlines (the only other option was British Airways, and they wouldn't accept non-British credit cards!) to Istanbul for six nights on the 18th of April, travel around to see lots of things (more details to come), and get back to London on the 29th of April.
We are of course looking forward to the trip, and the possibility of others coming and joining will only add to the excitement!

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 23:09 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Liz is a Nurse (again)! ( No photos )
No, this time for real!!! She actually has various fairly un-impressive pieces of paper to prove it!! She gave up waiting for the courier, went in and vented at the agency and recieved said documents in exchange.
We have an appointment later this week to get a National Insurance number (somewhere between a Tax File Number and a Medicare Number), and need to get letters from our relevant agencies saying that we are who we say we are. Of course, that was too hard for Liz's agency to have organised (they didn't even know they could until today), and offered to send it out to her.
Fat chance.
So, Liz is planning on heading back in later this week to pick it up, hopefully just in time.
I have found out that my place of work will employ me at least until the end of March, which will be just in time for a couple of weeks off before Gallipoli. That's another load off my mind.
Now, if we could just open a bank account...
Worked back a couple of hours tonight to fix a major configuration problem they didn't even know they had. They have agreed to pay whatever overtime is needed, since the deadline for the project is splashed across all forms of media here, and people are starting to worry it isn't going to work out well. Which sounds just like every other project anyone ever does!
There has been a Tube derailment here, we were nowhere near it and are not affected by it. However, it is the busiest line in the network (depending on how you measure it), and still closed. This, combined with tomorrow's fourty-eight hour fire strike is causing no end of fun to keep us interested.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 18:49 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Liz is a Nurse! ( 64 photos )
Well almost. She rang up on Friday to see what was happening, and they actually had her registration sitting there on someone's desk since the day before! Imagine that. So, she quite rightly insists that it be couriered out to her as soon as possible. No problems, they said, it will definitely be delivered before twelve noon Saturday.
This was to be a minor inconvenience to us, as we had plans for Saturday, but were prepared to wait since it has now been almost ten months since she first started applying, and she (and I aswell) need some form of closure on this.
We woke early, Liz not daring to go for a walk (for it was fantastic weather and we were both home) or take a shower incase they came to the door (she has to sign for it).
Twelve O'clock came. Then one, and before you know it it was five, our day had disappeared and there was no sign of any couriers. Ho-hum.
So we spent the day together, not even stepping a foot out of the house, but enjoying putting our feet up none the less.

Liz spent the week pottering around and looking through museums - the Science Museum and the Museum of London.

Today, we decided to squish Saturday's plans in aswell. This involved driving out to High Wycombe, the place of Mum and Dad's residence here in the mid-70s, and about 25 miles from our place in Golders Green.
I had a short chat to the guy who lives there now, who was quite rude and not really interested in being helpful. However, as we wandered back later, I noticed that there is a sign outside the house saying that they sell honey! What better way to meet and greet, telling the story. The mother proved to be more chatty, but alas had no honey to sell me - it was awaiting bottling later this week. So if we make it back at a later stage, there is the possibility that she will let me in to have a look around, which would be great!
After a walk around the nearby park with associated Sunday rugby kids, we headed into town to have a look at the high street. A few more photos of the place where Dad used to work, before we headed back to Golders Green.

Of course, today is Australia Day. Not ones to let such an event slip by un-noticed, we decided that a good old Aussie-style BBQ was required. Crowded House blaring out on the radio, Ryan and I created the heat and flipped the meat which Liz and Chantelle had done a great job of preparing.
The strange thing was that we hear that due to total fire bans, even if we were back in Sydney, we couldn't have had a barbie at all! So our wet, slippery-grounded, smoky-coal-powered-fire meal was about the best Australia Day meal we could have managed anywhere.
That's not to say that we don't miss standing up for 12 hours parking cars with SES like must have happened today, but we hear even the fireworks were cancelled - what happened there?
Curiously for London, the weather held out and the sunset was fantastic.

We have decided to go on the tour to Gallipoli for ANZAC day (roughly April 18th-30th). The particular one we think we are going to do is this one. It is eight days, and takes in all major places we are interested in seeing in Turkey, including of course the dawn service.
We plan to fly in with British Airways (the cheapie airlines don't fly that far!), and get there a few days early and have a look around Istanbul on our own. Hopefully we can book it all tomorrow.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:32 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Another Week ( No photos )
Yes, due to working they are starting to really fly by now. The only consoloation is that we can start to look forward to travel again. Oh, and of course Liz finally being able to work - she's still awaiting her registration. At this rate it will come in just before we leave!
Going out on a limb once again and talking about plans we are bound to change, we have one major thing on our horizon - a trip to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day. Since we have for many years got up hideously early to do dawn service marches around Sydney, and we are going to miss it this year, we thought we'd go one better.
This was all ok when we first thought of it, but now apparently John Howard has come out and listed it as a possible terrorist target at that time. While making us a little nervous, we still think we will get over there, stay out of the cities and packed-areas, surfacing only for the all-important dawn service.
Far from having a set plan as yet, Liz is researching some of the organised trips to see what the deal is. We may end up renting a car for a week or so, and having a look around Istanbul, making a little "holiday within a holiday" out of it.

Since the last update, we have of course done a few things:

• Liz did some wandering around local shops in the first half of the week, generally biding her time awaiting her registration to come through.
• I was at work, doing more of the same, except for Friday when I went to our Disaster Recovery (aka. standby or contingency) site down at Docklands. Interesting place, it is served by the Docklands Light Railway, or DLR to its friends. This was a strange experience - basically a tram, but with no driver! You can sit right at the front and watch the track come right at you. Technology these days...
• On Thursday, Liz came in to meet me at work for lunch at the nearby Old Spitalfields Market, before she headed off to the nearby Body Worlds Exhibition. Her review could be summarised as "confronting, strange, yet somehow interesting".
• Friday night was a big night up at the Local with Ryan, Chantelle and a few other friends. My first Karaoke experience is still haunting me. Let's just say I'll never listen to Bohemian Rhapsody in quite the same light. Saturday was a write-off, watching four movies and generally being lazy.
• Today we finally went and saw The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, at the Muswell Hill Odeon. Of course, a fantastic movie, but the combination of a completely packed cinema with way too many kids all talking for three hours made the overall experience somewhat lack-lustre.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:05 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Goodbye Margaret! West Finchley ( 29 photos )
Well, Margaret should have touched down in Sydney an hour ago - we haven't heard from her since she left here last night, but I'm sure it was all ok. It's been good having her here for a while, and now of course she is going to be missed. Not the least by Liz!
In the past few days it has been finishing off the week of work, and spending a bit of time relaxing.
In the great tradition of breaking our plans totally, we have now decided to keep Percy a little longer. Basically we are back to paying a huge amount for the insurance, but since it is being spread out monthly and I'm working now it's not so terrible.

So, we set off today to have a look at the place where my mum and her friends stayed when they were living here many many years ago - up at 7 Western Court, West Finchley. By a large fluke, that's only about ten minutes drive from where we are living. Strange how things play out. Hopefully this will help revive some long lost memories!
After we wandered around for a while, we drove over to Cherry Tree Wood in East Finchley - a very pretty little woodland tucked away in suburbia.

Liz has just found a message left on our home MessageBank thingo (like an answering machine that lives in phone-company land) from her nursing agency. Apparently, her registration has come through, but she needs to now pay another hundred pounds for the registration itself, and then wait at least ten days after that before she can work.
A mixed blessing, because she now is not sure what to do for that period of time, while I'm at work. We'll keep you posted.
The weather has been much warmer - about two or three degrees each day now. It took about four days after the heavy snow for the ice to melt - until then the hospitals were full of people who had fallen over. It was all we could do to not join them!

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:05 GMT 12/01/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Nice Weather ( 3 photos )
Since the weather was nicer for a change this morning, I took some photos of our house and street.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 21:05 GMT 12/01/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Dinner with Housemates ( 1 photo )
Thursday night we went out for dinner with everyone else from the house to one of the Italian restaurants up at Golders Green. A good night out, it was nice to chat to people in a sit-down way, rather than waiting for them to wander past during the week.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 17:50 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Let it Snow! ( 7 photos )
It has arrived a little late, but our "White Christmas" has finally arrived! There's a few new stories at places like this, which will tell you that we have had two inches of snow in Central London - the highest in nine years!
I went out for a walk at lunch time and it was amazingly beautiful. Had a snowfight in the courtyard outside work, and then trudged slowly and carefully off to get some food from the local Spittalfields Market.
There's a huge amount of black ice around, so you have to be very careful - my hiking boots are proving not to be too useful with their large amounts of flat sole, and as such my knees are taking a battering. Still, no complaints here! Bring on the snow!
In other news, we have all but decided to sell Percy now - he's proving too expensive to keep. The only problem now is how to sell him when we can't let people out for a test drive while he is not insured. I'm sure we will work something out.
Liz and Margaret went to the Savoy Theatre this afternoon to watch HMS Pinnafore, but it was part of Margaret's Chirstmas present from us. I am going to try to convince her to write a bit about it later on.
No other real news, except make sure you keep an eye on the photos page for lots of snow pictures.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 17:50 GMT 08/01/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Snow and Ice ( 4 photos )
Took some very dark pictures this morning before going to work of the snow all over our street!

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 09:27 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Happy Birthday Peter! ( 15 photos )
I think I've used that title before, however this time it's for a different Peter - my brother, who is celebrating his 21st today. I hear it all went well, and a good time was had by all. Congrats mate for making it through!
The main news of late people have been asking about is my job. As I mentioned the other day, it is for a company who have the contract for the imaging component of the Central London Congestion Charging. What this actually means is that as you drive into London on several key roads, your number plate is photographed, sent to the data centre where I work, and processed to extract the numbers from it, and packaged up for forwarding on to other people who then check whether you owe money.
What the main part of my job is is running a couple of servers who are responsible for storing these little packages of pictures and information permanently on what is effectively a bunch of over-grown CD burners. This is for reference in case anyone ever wants to dispute the fact that they were driving along that road at that time.
I am also there to help out the other fifteen members of the team who are effectively "Windows guys" with any questions on the running of the UNIX servers. I'm producing some documentation on the systems, since, as I arrived, there was precisely zero. Nobody knew how they had been set up. This makes for a challenge when at least three different companies and their staff have had access to the machines in the last few months and could conceivably have put anything at all on there.
That said, I actually have someone else to help do all this, who started the same day I did, with basically the same job description. The strange thing is, we actually solved a Windows problem for them as the first thing we did - that's supposed to be what they are the experts at!
What makes this job really challenging are couple of little details:

• They don't have any computers for us to work on. This means that any work we want to do, we can turn up and hope to find a spare computer (difficult because they are all earmarked for other duties), or we can work standing up in the server room all day, via a convoluted chain of technology.
• "Fine", you might say - "you have a laptop over there - use that". I'd love to, but that is against company policy. Only company-owned computers can be connected to the company-owned network. Except they don't have any company-owned computers to give us!!

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 14:29 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Last Night of Freedom ( 1 photo )
This morning we awoke late-ish, spoke on the phone to a few people and wrote some letters. We plan to have a big-night-in tonight, celebrating my last night of freedom before hitting the 9am start tomorrow morning.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 14:29 GMT 01/01/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Happy New Year! And a Job! ( 38 photos )
New Year's Eve was another interesting day. Early on, I was quite suprised to answer the mobile to a job offer! They didn't even want an interview - just turn up on Thursday ready to go! Who was I to say no - the money is good enough, and it's only a two-month contract, so it fits in nicely with us saving hard and running off to travel around the rest of Europe, and still maybe making our August return tickets.
I don't know a huge deal about the job yet, except it is quite near Liverpool Street station (about 30-40 mins travel time), and working for an outsourcing company who have the government contract for the Transport for London Congestion Charging project. They seem to want me for a UNIX Support/Admin role, which sounds interesting, if a little different to what I was aiming for.

So, after the excitement of that had worn down, we sat down to work out what we were going to do for the evening to celebrate the New Year. We had had a few offers, but nothing really ticked our fancy, so we decided just to jump on a tube and let the rest work itself out.
First stop was Leicester Square, where we eventually found some truly terrible food and service at one of the many Aberdeen Angus steak houses (read someone else's opinion of them here, which is not to dissimilar to ours). I refused to pay the "compulsory" service charge (the service was non-existant and the food terrible), so we left quickly, looking for somewhere better to spend the rest of the evening.
Eventually we located one of the only places you could get a drink without a twenty-five pound ticket, which was a great little bar just off Leicester Square. After a while though, we were treated to some more great British hospitality, and rudely told that we had to move our table, because they needed the room. So we did, but found the new location was right between four smokers. Left there pretty quick.
Here started our big wander around Central London - taking in Oxford Circus, Whitehall, Westminster, Southwark (where they had some pretty blue lights near the London Eye) and a couple of bridges along the way. We decided that we would spend the new year watching Big Ben chime away, along with several thousand other revellers packed outside Westminster. It was a nice relaxing way to do it, until the huge crush of people madly deciding they wanted to get out caused several sore bones. No lasting damage was done, and we eventually made our way back to the only open tube at Charing Cross, then came straight home.
So it wasn't the most outrageous, crazy New Years we have ever had, but it was certainly quite memorable. We were on the whole un-impressed with London's efforts compared with Sydney - no fireworks, Trafalgar Square was closed (complete with huge signs saying "Nothing to see here, move along", or something to that effect) - we had chosen the most interesting place, apparently. There was something going on at the Millenium Dome, but we only found that out the day after.

author Tim	location Golders Green, Greater London, England
posted 14:34 GMT	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 1 ( all photos )

Back at Golders Green ( No photos )
(Continued from Carlisle for Christmas).
We have received email, phone call and letter from a previously-unknown part of my family here. Apparently Mum and Dad put the address of this website in a letter to them with their Christmas card, and the rest is history. We now have an invite up North to stay for a weekend (some live in Cambridge and some in Chester), and an offer of a "few beers" with plenty of people I've never met. Sounds great!
The never-ending insurance saga still doesn't end. We are very close to selling the car, now that we have done the vast majority of our travel we have planned in the UK. The quantity of money they are now asking (very different to last time we talked, of course) just isn't going to be worth it.
We have bought some speakers for our room now, which make it quite a bit more like home. Will have to watch the volume - have already been asked to turn it down at bedtime by Vicky!
Margaret is now in Dublin. She is spending a week over visiting her friend Anne. Departing on Sunday from Stansted airport North of London, Liz took the train ride out there with her. Whilst this was occuring, I acquainted myself with the local Brent Cross Shopping Centre, which is quite big, but almost 100% women's clothes and shoes. Ho hum. And the sales are just to get you in the door to by the decent things, still expensively priced. No real surprises there.
Where there was a surprise however, was walking around the local Golders Green high street. The place is really amazing for a set of local shops. To give you an idea of the expanse of the place, there is a Starbucks next to a Costa next to a Coffee Republic (for non-UK people, that's three big coffee shops in a row), and they were all full! There's plenty of great places to eat - we intend trying some of the Kosher food (this being a big Jewish area) to see what all the fuss is about.

(customised)