Sunday, July 12, 2009

London






Well I finally made my way through Heathrow Airport after a bit of an ordeal with immigration. Unfortunately the hold up at the airport meant I arrived too late to attend the live BBC show that Pam had scored free tickets for. This also meant that I did not see Pam at all during my visit to London. However it was a pleasure to spend time with Tim and Louisa and have a nice rest after my intense five months at WOSTEP.

During my visit I had a job interview and bench test in Southampton with a large watch company The Swatch Group. The day went very well even though five weeks later I am still waiting for any correspondence from them. Perhaps this is for the best as in the mean time I have had a couple of fantastic job offers in Sydney, Australia.

Of course we had wonderful home cooked meals with a combination of Tim and Louisa’s cooking. One of the finer days we took a fantastic picnic with salmon, salad and wine to Primrose Hill Park only to have the sun go behind the clouds when we arrived, however it always fun to people watch and all the dogs playing. I made a fantastic lasagne one night that would have tasted great had it not been for my little run in with the chilli, thank goodness still edible but on the border. Between us we managed to devour a fair bit of wine over the two weeks but wine goes hand in hand with good conversation and that is what detox’s are for.

I had visited London in January for a few days and got a fair bit of sightseeing out of the way but decided to do the free New Europe royal walking tour all the same to get the running commentary and meet some new people, wise decision, I did meet a lovely girl from Canada and afterwards we went out to lunch and I got to try the famous fish and chips with mushy peas. Also during the viewing of The Changing Of The Guards at the palace the queen just happened to depart so I saw her for the first out of the two sightings in the two weeks I was there. The second opportunity was to come during the Queens birthday celebration where they have the big horse and military parade, fly over and gun salute, it was certainly special to be able to see this. Tim and Louisa had been fortunate enough to get themselves tickets to the Queens Birthday so while Louisa was in France on Saturday 4th June Tim and I spent a very successful day suit shopping, had a great time traipsing the streets of London and tried Pork buns for the first time (delicious) and of course had to have a quick detour into the biggest toy store in the world.

What trip to London would be complete without a visit to the ‘Church’ so with Louisa’s wonderful planning we threw together some last minute costumes and met with Nicola and a couple of others for a fab afternoon at the ‘church’. We all met at Tim and Lou’s for a yummy croissant breakfast and Pimms (another first for me) before catching our black cab to the club. Of course no church visit would be complete without being followed by a trip to the walkabout where we devoured a pie and some more beer. We made our way home at a responsible hour and went to the Australian burger bar up the road for some delicious burgers for dinner and then an early night to prepare for a day at work the following day or for me an early start to the airport for my departing trip to Texas.

1 comment:

Ahdub said...

looks like you had a pretty good time in London! Much needed break after 5 months of hard work :-)