Australia Day!

The week following our trip to York was a pretty average one. Christine started the week with a stomach bug and finished it with a series of migraines. Both of us only worked a four day week.
The weekend we did as little as possible, spent some time in the park with Marie and Mel who we live with. Christine went back home for a nap while the three of us then went for bit ore of a walk, past Buckingham Palace to the Portrait Gallery. This was good but was so busy that we only lasted about an hour before grabbing some lunch at Convent Garden.
Sunday we were supposed to be seeing Julia, but this got cancelled, as she was sick also. We went for a walk through the Notting Hill area, which is the suburb next to where we are staying.
Sunday night we had another house dinner, as Marie was leaving us the next day, returning to Franceland, which is where she is from. Sad, but with a bit of luck she may be in Paris around the same time as us in April.
This week has been a much better one! Monday night Damien got home from work early (on-time), and cooked Mexican, to give Christine a ‘break’. Great in theory, but gave her the chance to do some baking, which she was still doing at midnight!

Tuesday 26th January – Happy Australia Day!!!

Today is probably the day that I have talked and thought about Australia the most, since we left in May. Which I guess makes it one of the more homesick moments of that time. Oh how we miss the sun, the surf, the food and wine, and of course the people!
The house was decorated green and gold, and the flag balloons (thanks mum), we dressed up in Aussie colours, drank Fosters, cooked rissoles on the Barbie, ate Anzac biscuits and Pavlovas. The music for the evening was Australian of course, a big showing from Powderfinger. While not our original plan, living with 15 odd other Aussies does have its advantages!

Wednesday night Damien was out for dinner with the people he has been working with for the past 3 months. Paid for by work, it was a bit of a thank you dinner for everyone over the past few months. It was in an up market pub just near London Bridge, the food was good, for London pubs.
Thursday we were out again, this time meeting up with Brendan, Christine’s brother who is living in Cardiff. He is working in London for the next few weeks, so might see a bit more of him. After a burger at Gourmet Burger Kitchen we visited the Aussie pub for a pint!

York

This weekend we took the train from London to York. It’s nice little city/town, very old and medieval, surrounded by a still intact city wall.
We had booked an early train, and the two hour trip north got us into York a bit after 9 am. When we arrived it was raining, as it had been for most of the morning. It wasn’t heavy rain, just enough to be a pain in the arse. We walked into town from the station, not a very long walk at all. We were looking for somewhere to have some breakfast but ended up deciding to try and find ‘Bettys’ which had been recommended by a work colleague. It was a very fancy place, we felt a little bit out of place when we rocked in wearing snow jackets, carrying a back pack and dripping wet. The food was good though Christine had chocolate and orange pancakes and I had a Fat Rascal, which was like a huge scone filled with fruit and spices.
Our next stop was at the Viking discovery centre which had also been recommended. Sadly, this was closed for renovations. Strangely the ticket box and gift shop were open. We had a bit of a chat to the girl in the ticket box, who was able to give us a few tips on pubs to visit in town.
After dropping our bags at the hotel we were staying at we headed back out for a look around town. We walked past the big gothic cathedral on our way to visit the Museum Gardens and the Art Gallery. The gardens were a park on the outside of the wall which had some ruins from another old church in them. After a big week and a day walking around in the rain we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap!

We headed to The Old White Swan for dinner. This is a pub in town that does good local food apparently. We ate massive plates of Toad in a hole, basically a big Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and veggies.
We had seen an advertised Pub Crawl during the day that was part ghost tour and part pub crawl. The add even said it ran regardless of the weather. For whatever reason, when we arrived at the meeting spot and no one else was there, we called them and found out it wasn’t running tonight! Typical!
Instead we thought we would take ourselves on bit of a pub crawl, which turned out to be a lot easier than we thought. We headed to the Hansom Cab, a pub that had been recommended by the girl at the Viking Centre. According to my slightly sketchy memory, the pub is owned by one of two brothers. One of the brothers runs a number of pubs that serve the Golden Nectar that is Fosters. The second guy, and the guy who owns the Handsome Cab, brews his own beers, and doesn’t serve anything else. As a result we had a few beers, all different, one was as cheap as 1.50 for a pint, but it wasn’t the best tasting stuff. Real English Ale, flat and warm!
Anyway as it turned out we got chatting to a small group of locals who were having bit of a night out for a birthday. They ended up convincing them to join them as they were headed to a different pub. Over the next 4 hours or so we visited about 3 more bars with them and even got told a few ghost stories on our travels!

Sunday morning we had a sleep in and then headed downstairs for a big Cooked English breakfast. The fried toast was rather vulgar, but for the most part the poms can at least cook a decent breakfast!
Sunday was sunny which was exciting as we haven’t seen much sun for the last few months. After getting out of bed, for the second time, and checking out we headed over to the Shambles. This is a narrow old street where all the buildings lean over the road towards each other. We also walked past Clifford’s Tower, which is not that high but very cool. The name comes from a guy that was hung from the top of the tower years ago… Sweet hey!
The rest of the afternoon we spent walking on the city wall and practically did the whole thing! It was then back to the train station and a short visit to the National Rail Museum to kill the last hour or so we had before taking the train back to London.

New Year

Our last day of the Christmas break we headed to the Camden markets. This part of town has a bit more colour than most of London and is based on a canal so it is quite nice. Most of the markets are junk and clothes, but I did buy a spring roll! Work has been crazy since we got back. First week back was quite ok but I worked 6 days last week (sunday off), plus 2 nights were VERY late nights.
We have also had a visit from Christine’s cousin-in-law, Andrea. It was great timing, as the night she arrived the snow hit. This meant London looked good, but also Christine had 2 days off school. The girls did a number of the touristy things and saw Billy Elliot the musical.

Its been very cold and snowy, which I like, London looks so much nicer with snow. Sadly this week is warmer, snow melted, but still very cold 8-10 deg celcius.
Christine has realised she has 2 weeks off in Feb, a week at Easter and then wont be working at all in April. My contract finishes at the start of Feb.