Sun, 15 Jun 2003

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 22:23 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Back on the Road ( 2 photos )
Tracing back to our departure from London:
Many people had commended on the stupidity of getting up early on Sunday after the big night before to drive half-way across the country. As it happens, we weathered it suprisingly well.
First we needed to pack Rosie, who we parked right outside the front door to throw things in. Mark helped, as he was getting a free ride half-way home, so he didn't have much choice!
That was less painful than expected, as we opted to simply throw things where they fit, rather than attempting to organising anything. There was plenty of time for that later.
Next task was far harder - waking up our housemates to say goodbye. In the end, Carlo and Nicole were roused, followed by the sleepy Maddie, Panella and Liz. We will miss them of course, but that's what this travelling stuff is all about.
Bus loaded, we proceeded to enter McDonalds across the road for only the second or maybe third time since we have lived there, and grab some breakfast. As an excuse, we had packed up all our kitchen stuff so had to eat something!
We jumped in and drove around the North Circular, first stop was Romford station to pour Mark on to the train (he lives further out in Essex but on the same line), then on to Les and Pearl's.
Big thanks to them for helping us out at late notice with a place to store our suitcases, a big help as other friends are unsure as to what their futures hold. We had a cup of tea, then Les helped me out with a bit of DIY on the van (we are going to have to get good at that), before he jumped in the pilot seat. Liz later commented that it looked like he could happily have driven around Europe sitting there!
We said our goodbyes, then found our way back to the motorway, heading away from London to commence the second South England leg of our trip.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 21:41 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Huge Capita Farewell ( 6 photos )
It would have been nice to sleep in Saturday morning, but that was not to be, as we had things to do - bags to pack, odds-and-ends to buy, and Liz had generously organised a relaxing facial for me as an anniversary present! Who was I to complain, soaking up the good vibes while struggling to stay awake.
The main aim of the day, however, was the big farewell party at our favourite London pub, the oft-visited Bull and Bush, North End. We arrived at 3pm, and it wasn't long until we were joined by my work-mate Ian, his wife and toddler. By 6pm plenty were sharing the fun, and by 10pm or so, only the battlers remained, with plenty of work mates offsetting the slight disappointment that not many of our other mates were able to attend. Can't have everything.
The fun lasted until 11pm closing time (won't miss that when we leave), when we staggered back down the considerable hill to Golders Green station, Mark from work in tow, and grabbed a bus back to Cricklewood. He stayed over the night, proudly being the only pom in a house of Aussies.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 21:41 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Goodbye to House-mates ( No photos )
Friday afternoon, people from both our jobs suddenly became nice to us and seemed to genuinely regret that we were leaving. At least the several job offers Liz recieved means that if we need to head back here at any stage, that could happen.
That evening, we had organised a night out with the people from our house - those that could make it were Carlo, Nicole and the other Liz. This was again down at the Brondes Age (spelt it right this time) restaurant, which apparently is a bit of a house tradition. We capped off a good night by wandering down to one of the Aussie Pubs in Kilburn, where my plan of not coming to the other side of the world to pretend you are back home seemed to have been a good one. Plenty of Aussies do, however, and we chatted awhile before wandering back to the house.

author Tim	location Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
posted 21:41 BST 18/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Whitehall Walk ( 43 photos )
Going back what seems like a long long time to Thursday 12th, I took my camera into work to capture a few last snaps of the area. This rapidly paid off, as they were filming a period commercial using some of the old Victorian buildings near work, as well as there being a life-size human table football game. This consisted of people paying money to be strapped to large metal bars, and work as a team to chase a ball left and right across the table. Very strange to watch.
The real reason I had taken the camera was to do the last of the Eccentric London walks we intended to - around Whitehall. Friend from work Mark accompanied us around the area.
My work at Spitalfields was smack-bang in the middle of it, and I was glad that we hadn't chosen to this walk earlier, because right at the exit of my work was one of Jack the Ripper's murder sites! We tramped around quite a few other interesting places including the Blind Beggar pub (still containing crimson carpet incase anyone wants to commit a third murder there), the house of the freak-of-nature Elephant Man, a closer look at Christ Church, and the Dickensian Artillery Passage, all riddled with plenty of gory history. Liz was dying for a Brick Lane curry (that's the place to go if you want a curry in London), so we partook in one of the random places which seemed to have a suitable menu. It was great.

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Only Four Sleeps to Go! ( No photos )
Wow - that's not long until we jump in the combi and get on the road. It has gone so fast, but looking back on what we have done, we have managed to squeeze quite a bit in to our time here.
I am writing this from Australia House, Aldwych, awaiting my turn to get my Australian Driving Licence renewal form witnessed. Not a bad excuse to get into work late anyway, and see a bit of London in the process.

[ Tim's update has been broken out into separate entries ]

That may be the last update for a while, as after Friday we will be back on to mobile-phone net access for the most of our travels. Photos will be thin on the ground as they take a long time to send through the expensive phone, and can't be sent if we do updates from an Internet cafe.
Rest assured, we will do our best, and hope that people continue to email us as we travel around Europe like we originally set out to do!

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Shakespeare's Globe ( 22 photos )
Sunday morning, we had a bit of a sleep in before awaking the sleepy-heads Meaghan and Dave, who had spent the night uncomfortably on the couch. It could have been worse, since there were also two extra people there staying (for a total of twelve) - Ben and Liz who used to live here, have been travelling and have come back to look for work. Luckily they had squeezed themselves into somebody else's room for the night.
Staggering slowly on the walk down to the cleverly-named Bronds Age restaurant/pub (it's at Brondesbury station, just past Kilburn), Meaghan noted that she had been there before visiting Clinton, who lived here during his Big Europe Adventure a year or so ago. It was not a night she wished to recall, apparently.
This places serves the best full vegetarian breakfasts - we ordered one each and relaxed in the funky, nothing-matches-at-all atmosphere of the pub, complete with "hand" chairs, Julius-Caesar style lounge-chairs, and so many other things that if you don't like what you are sitting on, just pick something else from close at hand.
Jumping on the tube at Kilburn, we waved farewell to Meaghan and Dave for the next month or so (we should be able to visit them on our way across England from Ireland to Holland) at Finchley Road, the target for Liz and I was the replica Shakespeare's Globe theatre at Southwark.
Not being the hugest fans of the master's work, we had none-the-less had this listed as a "must-do" before leaving London. We had put it off all winter as they only run plays during the summer months.
It was so worth the wait.
The building itself is very impressive - reminding me constantly of my English classes at Sydney Tech where we studied the original and how the audience were participants. Picture a shrunken football stadium, round, with vertically-stacked stands around the outside, a stage at one end of the middle and the "plebians" watching the show from the ground. That was us, and at £5 a ticket it is one of the best investments so far.
The show itself we went to see was an all-female production of Richard III. This I found interesting, as back in Shakespeare's time even the female parts were played by males, so this was quite uncommon. Richard II is also on there at various times, so I was a little wary about booking tickets to the "sequel" without seeing the original (or, for that matter, Richard I!), but my worries were un-founded.
Standing for three hours (with interval) passed quickly, and the cast dealt amazingly well with the weather (there's no roof for us in standing-room), which they weaved into the plot to great effect when the rain started pooring down. The rain dried up, but we both freely admin to a few tears at the end, such was the quality of the performance.
Best thing in London so far. Although there has been plenty of contenders to that title!
We then wandered next door to the Tate Modern. Even Liz who freely admits she's not a big fan of weird modern art was impressed by the strange array of things on display. Of most note were the strange massive inflatable sculptures out the front, visible from miles away that you can actually walk inside, and an exploded shed, captured with suspended bits of abandoned junk as it would have been micro-seconds after the explosion, with a light bulb in the middle that casts amazing shadows all over the room the display has to itself.
Would have liked to have spent more time there, but I guess we can't have everything.
We found ourselves at the dingy little Black Friar pub at, funnily enough, Blackfriars a little later on. We had wandered up here on our Eccentric London Blackfriars and Fleet Street walk a few months ago, but the pub was closed at the time. It turned out to be an amazing little place, complete with mosaics on the roof, very dingy little corners which the two of us just squeezed into, squinting to read the menu in the gloom. Great stuff. It was a bit of a toss-up between travelling into Chinatown near Leicester Square for some Chinese food or staying in the pub.
Eventually, the ability to get a train straight back from Blackfriars to Cricklewood won us over, and we did so, retiring for the night after a weekend well-spent around London.

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST 11/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Anniversary Proper ( No photos )
Saturday, in contrast to Friday, was a day of doing things with the van (how romantic!). I went down to gather it early in the morning from Hanwell, returning awaiting my cooked breakfast I had been promised for the two-hour trip, only to find Liz just struggling out of bed! No matter, we ate and then jumped in the van for a morning of collecting various bits and pieces - an electrical hook-up cable, gas bottle, stereo, cigarette lighter (for connecting all sorts of goodies), 240v inverter (ditto), etc.
Returning to rest our not-too-well bodies, we eventually got in touch with Meaghan who was coming to meet us for the last time. It was decided that we head to the eye-opening Camden for a look at the markets, aiming to see the night's show at the Jazz Cafe, but they only had one table left with no view of the band, so we wandered around grasping for alternate plans.
Meaghan and Liz dragged Dave (Meaghan's boyfriend) and I around the markets for quite some time, while miraculously only managing to purchase one T-Shirt between them (one for Liz which says "Feed me Chocolate!").
Wandering up to Chalk Farm station, we caught the tube to Golders Green, then the bus up the hill to probably our favourite London pub, the Bull and Bush on North End Road. This little place suits us so well that we are having our leaving do there this Saturday afternoon once again!
There, we relaxed outside before retiring inside for some great food and a good cold chin-wag. Eventually, we wandered slowly down the hill to get the night-bus from Golders Green to outside our house - there's a lot to be said for living in the thick of things, great transport is the one perk we will miss.

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST 11/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Boring ( No photos )
Friday we again continued our tradition of not too much besides work.

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST 11/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Anniversary Celebration ( No photos )
Saturday the 7th was Liz and my six-year anniversary. Celebrating in typical low-key fashion, we started out on Thursday by dropping in at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Hampstead - a nice little place with great food for not large amounts of money. We've both been quite sick with colds and the like recently, so we didn't actually stay too long.

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Looking Around London a few Last Times ( No photos )
It's getting to the point where we have precious little time remaining in London, so we are attempting to make the most of it. This is one of the reasons why the journal is falling by the wayside.
We have just made a rough plan for what is going to happen once we do leave London on Sunday the 15th June (less than two weeks away!). We are taking a very round-about way first to Stonehenge and then The Eden Project way down in Cornwall. From there we drive through South Wales, having a very quick look around before piling onto a ferry bound for Ireland from Fishguard.
Ireland for two and a half weeks (including my birthday spent with Gail, who used to work with me in Sydney, and also has the same birthday!), then ferry back to Fishguard, drive across England stopping off possibly in Oxford and Cambridge, before getting a ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland.
Or maybe we'll do something completely different!

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST 03/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Bits for Rosie ( No photos )
Sunday was less painful than I expected, so Liz and I took a walk up the road to Halfords, looking for bits for Rosie. We have a reasonable list of outstanding equipment, including a stereo - quite important we have discovered on our last few trips without one. We picked one out and put a deposit on it.
Liz noticed that across the road from there was a Sainsburys store (big supermarket). Sure, there are supermarkets closer than that to us, but she knows from a mile away that she can get her favourite Raspberry and Custard Danishes there, and there's no stopping her!
We got the bus back home and spent the rest of the afternoon doing some planning for our forth-coming trips.
House-mates Maddy and Panella managed to convince us to go out for the night to the Walkabout at Shepherd's Bush. We hadn't been to that one, but it is the most popular one around, so we thought we'd give it a go. After a journey with a fun mini-cab driver, the pub turned out to be very packed, hot and dirty, not really our scene at all, so we had a couple of Snakebites and left, back home on the bus.

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST 03/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Go-Karting! ( No photos )
The week was spent as most are of late - we both work forty-hour weeks, go home and make dinner (yes, I cook now and then!), before some more planning kicks in for the coming weeks, followed by maybe some reading (we bought Bill Bryson's amusing Down Under) before sleeping, preparing to do it all again the next day.

Which brings me to Saturday. My boss Trevor had approached me the previous day asking what I was doing on the Saturday. "Not much at this stage", I replied. "Well, why don't you come to Danny's Stag Day go-karting and then drinking-fest?" What was I supposed to say to that?
It was actually the first day Liz and I had been apart for quite some time, she was hoping to get a shift but there wasn't any, so she relaxed with the other housemates while I proudly came second out of fifty or so go-karters racing around a track way out somewhere. Great fun, my arms and back are still a bit sore from it all (three hours of racing!), but the little trophy coupled with the thrill of beating the poms at yet-another-sport made it all worth it.
From there we drove with some of the ten people who had come (half from work, half were Danny's mates) back to Danny's local pub at Stansted Mount Fitchet. This little town reminded me constantly of those little towns up in the Blue Mountains - one railway station, plenty of trees, a few pubs and everyone knows each other. Very nice indeed.
Everyone threw some money into a pot behind the bar, and many hours later, after making some great new friends, I managed to navigate my way back home (no mean feat after a night like that, involving the last train to Liverpool Street, the second-last tube to Farringdon, working out that my next train didn't stop at Farringdon, dashing to get the last tube to Kings Cross, then making the last Thameslink North to Cricklewood!).

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST 03/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Tower of London ( 46 photos )
Enjoying our long weekend, Monday we again headed back into town to take a walk up the Thames from Blackfriars towards the Tower of London. This was something we had thought about doing way back when we first arrived in London, but balked at the cost. It's strange how it doesn't seem so bad anymore, but if anything the prices are actually higher.
We had a great Yeoman Warder tour guide (who actually lives in the Tower) showing us around who genuinely seemed interested in what he had to say, coping well with the huge public-holiday crowds.
Things in there we saw included Traitor's Gate (where water access allowed people-smuggling for many a year), the Ravens, the White Tower (the dominant part of the Tower which houses lots of armour and the like), lots of ghastly torture and execution gear, and of course the Crown Jewels. The latter we viewed from the comfort of a travellator thing which meant you had to read very fast and attempt to appreciate it all. I guess it keeps the crowds down at least.
Wandering out the exit feeling rather hungry, we found a satisfactory cheap-ish lunch at a restaurant by the Thames before wandering home to while away the afternoon and evening.

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST 03/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Farnborough Again ( No photos )
A very lazy Sunday morning saw us watching Matrix on DVD, in preparation to go and see Matrix Reloaded (which we still haven't done).
Dragging ourselves out of bed, we took a trip way across London to Farnborough, where we have been a few times before. We rushed and rushed (well, as fast as four or five different modes of public transport could take us) down there to try to get there before 2pm to have pub lunch at the great Change of Horses pub there, got there about 1:58 only to find out they served lunch until 3! Very rare around here. In the end the weather turned foul fairly quickly, so we took a trip down to the church where Liz's grandparents are buried with some flowers we picked up in Beckenham on the way through.
Electing to return a slightly different way, we made our way back to Beckenham then took the tram to Croydon. This is a nice little place we have looked around before, we were aiming for the markets (a little late unfortunately) and then the Walkabout. This is the main chain of Aussie pubs around the place, there's quite a few in London but the Croydon is by far the nicest (in our opinion anyway).
We retuned by the more direct method of the Thameslink straight back to Cricklewood from East Croydon.

author Tim	location Cricklewood, London, England
posted 21:50 BST 03/06/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Goodbye Percy, Abbey Road ( 15 photos )
First thing on Saturday, a lovely young man named Adam came and gave us a large sum of cash in exchange for Percy! It was sad to see the back of him (Percy, not Adam) in a way, since we saw so much of the country driving around in him, but we have the big red bus now so it wasn't so hard.
Next we walked down to Kilburn to check out a caravan and camping shop there - quite useful things which we need were mostly there, which we aim to pick up this coming Saturday. Liz also picked up some thong-type-shoes.
Just up the road back towards Cricklewood is Brondesbury station, right next to which there is a great little pub almost entirely out of character for such an over-populated, pound-saver, traffic-jam area of London. Here we had some brunch which filled the spot quite nicely. We didn't feel so bad eating out with all that cash back at home!
In our typical lack-of-planning fashion, we took the shoes and our other goodies back to Cricklewood to look at what we intened to do for the rest of the day. One of those things is visiting Abbey Road (of Beatles Fame), which, it turned out, was about ten minutes walk from the caravan shop where we had just been!
So, we gave our travelcards a workout, taking the bus to Abbey road to see what it was all about. Having no idea where along Abbey Road the famous crossing was, we just got off at the first stop and walked down it until we arrived at the un-mistakable place. Not only the original album cover, but the thousands of imitations somehow made me know we were there even before we found the other tourists, Abbey Road Studios and the wall where Beatles fans have written all sorts of messages to their heroes (and anyone else who cares to read).
We dodged in and out of traffic for a while trying to get a decent picture of us crossing the road - in the end we got one of Liz on my camera and one of me on hers. At least we weren't as bad as the oriental guy who was there with his handy-cam filming himself walk across the crossing!
Continuing into town with the rough aim of visiting Westminster Abbey, we jumped off the bus to have a bit of a look around Selfridges (another big Harrods-like shop which turned out to be just that) and their much-more-impressive food hall. We held each other back from the acres of interesting food, using our current standard excuse "it will taste much better if we can afford to eat when we get to the country it comes from".
Jumping on the Jubilee line tube down to Westminster, we arrived only to find that Westminster Abbey itself was closed as of 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Oh well, we can try again some other time. We relaxed in the grounds awaiting inspiration for our next move.
This came in the form of some vouchers we have had for months which are used at the Elusive Camel, a chain of Aussie pubs in central London. The nearest wasn't far away just across Westminster Bridge in Waterloo, so we took a walk there. The place didn't turn out to be that crash hot, but the fact we weren't paying made that seem less of a problem.
Even though Liz has been before, I still hadn't seen any West-End theatre, which seemed like a bit of a crime after living in London for so long. So, we trundled back to Trafalgar Square to the half-price ticket place, and grabbed two tickets to see FAME the Musical. This was quite enjoyable, very colourful, although we got the impression that the actors had definitely settled into "mid-season" mode - two performances per day appeared to be taking its toll.
We wandered back to Trafalgar Square and grabbed a bus home.

author Tim	location Saltney, Chester, Cheshire, England
posted 08:02 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

More Family Members Met ( 22 photos )
We have just awoken on Sunday, to face the reason that so many of the Holladay family have gathered here - the Chester Half-Marathon. Liz and I aren't personally running, and even the Holladay contingent seems depleted this year, but we will be there giving some moral support at the finish line.

(Continued 08:45 BST 19/05/2003, from Spitalfields, London, England)
Carol prepared us a great breakfast, giving us just enough energy to wander up and watch the runners about one mile from the finish line. Andrew set the fastest time, just under 1:29, while the two brothers Norman and Dave stepped over the line together at just over two hours.
Being right on the outskirts of Chester, there is lots of parkland, and even horses around the place. We wandered back through all of this, just dodging the rain.
A little while after we had arrived back at the house, the runners stumbled in and collapsed on the floor. Carol had prepared a great meal for all of us which dissapeared rather quickly, topped off with some home-made apple pie.
More chatting with these extended family followed, reminding Liz and I often of our missed family and friends back home.
At around three o'clock, James led the way as we drove South to London. He managed to hold his speed back to that of the bus until we made it to the motorway, but then with a wave, he was gone.
Rosie trundled home with only a quick stop for fuel (she uses quite a bit more than Percy...), where we had only a snacky dinner before bed.

author Tim	location Saltney, Chester, Cheshire, England
posted 08:02 BST 18/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Retrieving Rosie, up to Chester ( No photos )
We had originally planned for Alwin from my work to drop Rosie off on Saturday morning at our house (he was working night-shift), but some thoughtful souls had left about an inch on each end for maneuvering space. In a big bus, that's a problem. So, Alwin left a couple of notes which seemed to have done the trick, since he rang me at 6:30am on Saturday as I was on my way to pick her up, saying it was all ok.
That journey involves the 266 bus from just around the corner to Acton Mainline Station, then a small two-car train which sounds more like a truck along to Ealing Broadway station (only one station), where I went and got a coffee and croussant while waiting for another train which actually stopped at Hanwell. A suprisingly nice journey at that time of morning, topped off with a five minute walk to Alwin's place.
There appear to be no major problems with leaving her there, except for occasionally being parked in. When I arrived, I noticed that the cars on either side had left around half a car-length for me to get out!
Thanking Alwin for his attempts to get Rosie to us (which had made him late for work), I drove off along back past Ealing Broadway to hit the North Circular for the drive back to Cricklewood.
Liz had managed to drag herself out of bed by this stage, so we finished our packing in reasonable time, jumped in the van and headed north.
Not much to report from the journey, except that it took us about four hours of driving and another hour of being stuck in traffic once off the M6 pointing at Chester.
After a short detour into North Wales (it's about a mile down the road from where we are), we arrived at the target for our travels - Gladys and Reg's place. These lovely people are related to me by my Nan on my father's side being Gladys' cousin. That part seems simple, it gets much more confusing though!
Also there were David (one of Gladys and Reg's sons) and his wife Sue, and we were later joined by Norman (the other son) and two of his sons Andrew and James, who we have met before.
We had some lunch and chatted the afternoon away, even looking at a very old photo of when Mum and Dad came and visited them on their big Europe tour.
After a while, it was time to head off to a dinner booking just inside Wales. This seems to be quite a popular option as it is apparently a little cheaper and there were plenty of other people doing the same. The place was a thirteenth century pub in the middle of nowhere, accessed only by single-track road. Quite a change from Cricklewood high street!
However, Sue noticed that some of the overhead beams had been made to look old by chiseling bits out of them - cheating in any language. Still, it was a nice enough place, the food was fine even if the complex ordering system meant that the service was pretty average.
Sue and David were then brave enough to take a trip in Rosie as we headed back to Norman and Carol's place for the night. We sat around talking before everyone looked over-tired and it was time for bed.

author Tim	location Spitalfields, London, England
posted 08:45 BST 19/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Greenwich Again ( 12 photos )
We took a trip to Greenwich once again (we did a walk around there a while ago), this time with the main aim of attending the highly-recommended National Maritime Museum. This was a great day wandering around the exhibits, including an impressive model of the Endeavour and all of the crew, which we just managed to fit in before closing time. We had a quiet drink at one of the great pubs on the Thames down there before heading back to Joel's sister Eve's place at Camden.
This was a house-warming party for a new housemate where we met lots of new people, ate a great BBQ (a strange event over here!), and had quite a wild night.

author Tim	location the 17:02 Thameslink to St. Albans, London, England
posted 17:06 BST 06/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Rosie goes to Milton Keynes ( No photos )
Monday morning we arose after a reasonably comfortable night's sleep in the van, flushed out the water system (which works really well), Liz had a bit of a drive (she's getting better!), then we set off for Milton Keynes.
A fairly un-eventful drive later, we pulled the van into Meaghan's grandma's place, quite a bit more imposing than last time we were here with Percy. Meaghan's first sarcastic words were "It's not quite big enough, is it?" It's just right, thank you very much!
We had a cuppa and a chat before her boyfriend Dave turned up and we all headed off to a pub somewhere in the Milton Keynes Lakes for lunch and a getting-to-know-you session with Dave. The food was great, and I think Dave was only a little bewildered by a side of Meaghan he had never seen before when she and Liz get chatting :)
Driving straight home, we off-loaded some gear before returning Rosie to Alwin's place then navigating the buses home again. A nice little weekend.

As for slightly longer-term plans, it appears that we have people to move into our room on the 21st of June, when we plan to head first to Ireland for a week or two (perhaps in the van, depends on cost of ferries versus cost of flights plus accommodation). Then the big Europe trip begins - not far away now.

author Tim	location the 17:02 Thameslink to St. Albans, London, England
posted 17:06 BST 06/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Welwyn Garden City ( No photos )
It was strange to wake on Sunday and still have two days of the weekend left - these past few weeks have been so hectic between Norwich, Amsterdam and Turkey that we have all but forgotten what free time felt like.
After ringing and waking up Meaghan, much to her disgust, we eventually decided that a short trip in Rosie would be a good way to fill in a couple of days. A bit of consultation with the bus maps later, and we found that a bus right near us takes us to Acton Main Line station, from where we can get a train to Hanwell, which is where Rosie is parked near Alwin from work's house.
However, this train doesn't run on Sundays, so it took a bit of wandering around with the A-Z (that's British for street-map) before we caught a bus instead. Eventually locating the right street, we were over-joyed to see our expensive future home once again, all in good order. We grabbed the keys and drove back to Cricklewood, a much faster journey than the one there had been.
Loading up with a doona, pillows, and many other "essential" items, we then drove off to a site of the Caravan Club, up in Welwyn Garden City.
They journey went suprisingly well, I hesitate to say it lest something go wrong, but I am getting used to this sitting-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car thing quite well. Judging by the smaller number of panic attacks Liz is having, I am even staying in the lanes a lot better now :)
We arrived at the caravan park around 4:30, where the kindly old couple running the place happily signed us up as members of the club (it looks quite good, they have all sorts of tips and tricks, as well as lots of advice for "first-timers" like us), and showed us to our little lot.
We still need to gather a few bits and pieces for the van, one of which is an electrical hook-up cable. No problem for the night, as the helpful owners lent us one of these too! Trundling around to our campsite, we set up for the night and plugged Rosie in. After fiddling for a while, it turns out that everything inside works just fine with the exception of the fridge, which doesn't seem to get cold. Will have to get that looked at soon.
The evening passed with us wandering down to the rather sparse local shops for some Chinese and a good chat at the pub.
We returned to the van, where Liz tackled some of her journal while I read some Australian newspapers that Alan Heighway has unbeknownst to us been sending over for a while! Good to read that not much has changed back at home in the nine or so months(!) since we left.

author Tim	location the 17:02 Thameslink to St. Albans, London, England
posted 17:06 BST 06/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Cabinet War Rooms ( 13 photos )
Awaking on Saturday morning, we took stock of what we wanted to do with our long weekend (Monday was a bank holiday). After having a look over what we want to see in the few remaining weeks we have in London, we decided to head into the centre of town to have a look at the much-recommended Cabinet War Rooms, right next to Number 10 Downing Street.
This is where Churchill and his off-siders effectively ran the British side of World War II from, in secrecy under several metres of bomb-proof concrete. Many of the rooms have been kept exactly as the were left as the various "enemies" surrendered, making the place a fascinating insight into how it must have been during those years.
After are audioguide tour was over (an increasingly-popular way of running a guided tour of these touristy sites - like an over-grown mobile phone which rabbits on at you as you wander around the place), we walked across the road for a bite to eat at the pub - quite different food to what we were eating only a week ago in Turkey.
Next on our wanderings was a bit of shopping - some books about caravan parks around Europe, then trip to the Australia Shop for some much-needed supplies of real food, badges and Aussie-flag stickers for the combi, before we wandered back to City Thameslink for the journey back to Cricklewood.

author Tim	location the 17:02 Thameslink to St. Albans, London, England
posted 17:06 BST 06/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Back to London ( No photos )
After we returned home still sick from food poisoning in Turkey, we had a slow couple of days at work on Thursday and Friday. Friday night was a party of sorts to celebrate the "going-live" of the Congestion Charge way back in February, but the party failed to be anything very interesting. We went back home and flaked into bed.

author Tim	location Spitalfields, London, England
posted 14:41 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

We are back! ( No photos )
(Continued from Turkey)
All safe and sound back in London, although we haven't had time to get the journal up to date. This will be a task for the coming long weekend.
We made it with no real problems. In a nutshell we had a great time, the only problem being two nasty bouts of food poisoning which almost everyone else there also had. Could have been much worse.
We are now planning our next trip...

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