The Missing BBQ!

On Sunday, Christine had to complete a risk assessment for the Natural history museum as she was taking a group of students there the following Thursday. We were lucky enough to go to the David Attenbourgh Theater for a talk and an interactive presentation. These were pretty cool especially the interactive one that looked at the ‘tree of life’ and showed how we are actually related to bananas. The museum is very interesting and has lots of specimens from all over the world so it is always fun to spot the Aussie. We found Wallabies, a Tawny Frogmouth Owl and Kingfishers. The dinosaur section was packed as usual but we managed to do an express tour and run past the animated T-Rex.
After a couple of hours it defiantly time for a coffee as Christine dragged me over to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The coffee shop there was the first museum coffee shop in the world. The rooms are all decked out in designers from back in the day. Christine wanted to sit in the William Morris room but it was full so we had to sit in the massive Gamble room. It looks like it could be a ballroom. After coffee and of course cake, we headed back to DC.
Australia Day – No BBQ!
Sadly London (or at least DC) put a dampener on Australia day this year. Last year we had a great night and hearty Aussie BBQ which was enjoyed by all the residents including the Frenchies and token Kiwi Chris (who did his best in green and gold)!
A few Fosters were consumed as well as Christines hamburgers (not allowed to be BBQ’d) and a few salads and other dishes in a communal feed. It was a night for reflection and counting down the days until we will be home, or at least out of London! It was also a bit more subdued, possibly as there are less aussies here at the moment. It was a nice night but the BBQ taste of the burger was missing!

The highlight of the week was definitely Friday, after work I had a beer with Sam, a guy I work with. I then met Christine at Covent Garden to see Blood Brothers. This was another musical that we had got tickets to. It was one of the best shows we have seen. Based on a story of a woman with a number of kids, who has twins. She gives one away at birth. The story is about how the two boys grow up and cross paths at different stages of their lives. It had great singing, high energy acting and a great story line, leaving you on the edge of your seat.

Cambridge

We have a list of places in the UK that we want to visit before we leave, and the good news is that it is getting shorter and shorter. Some places we have come to the realization that we wont be making it to, such as another trip to the parts of Cornwall that we missed and the Lakes and Peaks districts up north, simply as we are trying to work as much as we can, and these places require at least 4 days and a car. That said, we did Oxford recently and this weekend we made a day trip to Cambridge.

Saturday morning we were up early and out the door before breakfast was even served. We had train tickets from Liverpool St. After the hour and a bit journey we strolled from the train station toward the centre of town. Along the way we had a brief stop in a nice old church and at Downing College, which is one of the smaller colleges.
Our next stop was at Christs College. This is another nice old college, bit bigger. All of the colleges have nice buildings and gardens. This one had a Charles Darwin garden, as he studied at the college, which Christine enjoyed.

The next hour or so we strolled around the town. There were a number of art stores that Christine had a look in, we found some markets bought some Spanish Meats for dinner. The art shops we were half looking to buy an art work as we have been in the UK for so long. It was also just an excuse to warm up as it was pretty cold. We discovered some nice pieces but they are all so expensive when you are in a tourist town. We stopped in a nice café for lunch.
After lunch we headed out along the river and ‘The Backs’, which is a series of gardens and parks. These were nice, although it was a bit chilly. It would be very nice in the warmer months. We saw lots of bridges, and punts on the river. We decided it was a bit cold to give this a shot.

Christine’s favorite part of our time in Cambridge was Kettle’s Yard house and gallery. This is the house that Jim and Helen Ede lived in during the 1920s and 30s. Jim had been a curator at the Tate Gallery in London and collected lots of art from many of the artists he met there and became friends with. The house has been left as if they were still living in it and people are welcome to explore or sit and enjoy the many rooms. It was full of interesting furniture, ceramics and glass ware not to mention the paintings and sculptures. Some of the most famous artist represented were Miro and Henry Moore.
Partially so we could go to a nice Cathedral and partially so we could go to Kings College, for free, we went to Kings College for the Evensong. This is a Church service with a full choir in the evening. The cathedral is very big, old and very nice. The service was lovely.
With the colleges, galleries and cathedral out of the way, we headed to the pub to finish our day. We spent some time and ate in the Eagle which is an old pub with 5 or 6 cozy rooms. During WWII it was a popular hangout for the air force, and they have preserved graffiti and signatures on the walls and roof from the soldiers. On the way back to the train station we stopped for another beer at the Bear, a really small and a bit dingy pub.

Off to Chicago, for the Night!

After a busy week working, we were happy to see Saturday roll around. We had tickets to see a West End play, 39 Steps. Unlike most of the shows we have been to, this one was not a musical. It was a comedy with a small cast, only 4 actors, but very clever as there were many characters.
The story follows the main character who meets a lady at the theater, who turns out to be a spy. She warns him about the 39 Steps which is a weapon for world domination. The next morning she is found dead in his apartment. He flees from London to Scotland, running from the police, whilst looking for a doctor that the spy had been going to see to pass on her message. The doctor turned out to be helping the people who wanted to use this weapon, so he then had to escape from this doctor. It was very clever and quite funny, in a slapstick sort of way. After the show we headed to a pub for a few pints and then dinner in Soho which was nice.
The following week after a few days back at work we were off to another show. This time it was Chicago, which I had been looking forward to seeing for a while, as we have heard a lot of people enjoyed it. All of the tickets we bought were cheap, £25 for second row seats at Chicago and £15 for the other shows.
Unlike 39 Steps, Chicago is a musical and a big production, 20 odd people in the orchestra and probably 20 odd in the show. It was amazing and had a bit of everything, singing, acrobatics, dancing, comedy. It’s a true story about the 1920’s, in Chicago obviously. Show girls that end up in prison. They get a good lawyer and escape with lenient punishments. But it really is the amazing singing and dancing that makes it so good.
With their yearend still not complete, Damien had to work another weekend. We did manage to get to Jade’s 30th birthday at her place in Angel. Damien worked with Jade in his first contract role, and we see her every now and then. She is really sweet, originally from Mornington way she says (really Frankston). She has been in the UK for over 5 years and is quite settled here. We had a really good night, and met a few new people which was nice.

2011, A Walk in the Park!

We started the year with a day at Hampstead Heath. This is another big park, just north of London. It is a bit more hilly than other parts of the city, giving views back over London. It is a wealthy area, back in the day when London had drainage and sewage problems (some of which still exist at Dean Court Hotel!), the wealthy moved to Hampstead, as all the water drained away. It is also supposed to have a clean water spring, which meant that fresh water was available, while the dirty water drained away. The park is mostly unmanicured. It has open spaces, sections of forest and a number of lakes, which are apparently used for bathing in during summer! In the middle of the park is Kenwood House, an old mansion. After a coffee to warm up we visited the house which is full of old furniture, ornaments artwork and has a nice library. In the yards of the house are a couple of sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbra Hepworth. As always around 4pm the sun disappeared and the cold set in, even more so, meaning we had to leave the park and make our way back home to get ready for the week ahead. Luckily I had booked some theater tickets late last year for January, giving us something to look forward to in the short term!
We have also been spending a bit of time thinking about what is next for us, once we leave the UK, which we are looking forward to doing! We have booked some flights and decided that our 2011 travel plans will include Istanbul, Greek Islands, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech and a stopover in South East Asia on our way back to Melbourne. We’re not sure what we are more excited about, travelling again or finally being back in Melbourne! As always, there are so many more places that we would love to visit, but time has run short, we will just have to come back some day! For the record, I’m planning on going to the Melbourne Cup this year, if anyone wants to join us. Its amazing how many people from outside Australia have heard of this race, I’m sick of having to say I’ve never been!
The week at work turned out to be busy, very busy. In fact the next few weeks have rolled into a January blur. Working late nights and weekends as the company is a bit disorganised and unrealistic with their month end and year end deadlines. Nether the less it is all helping the savings for our travel to come in the next few months!

Christmas and New Year

Given that my Christmas markets trip was cancelled I planned a couple of things to keep me entertained. The first item on the agenda was a visit to the Victoria and Albert museum which Brian had been raving about. This was certainly an amazing place. There are just so many artefacts from all over Europe including a room full of casts taken from monuments. There were carved columns from Rome, Celtic crosses from Ireland, Nordic doorways, whole cathedral doorways, it was quite amazing! I was also impressed with the collection of mosaics, some of these looked like oil painting until you got close enough to see the individual pieces of coloured stone inlayed together. There was a huge collection of cloth samples centuries old from all corners of the Earth. A display following the history of jewellery design and much more. It is a place you could visit many times and find something new and amazing again and again.

I also planned a day trip to Hampton Court Palace with Angela, one of our housemates. This is where Henry the VII spent most of his time. There was still snow and ice around so we were unable to visit the gardens and the hedge maze which was disappointing. The buildings were very interesting and gave a bit of an insight to how the monarchy must have lived centuries ago. I loved the star studded ceiling of the church and the grandeur of the formal rooms.

Christmas was spent at Deans Court with all the other ‘London orphans’. The owner supplies masses of food which is always appreciated. We had turkey, pork and heaps of veggies followed by fruit mince tarts and Christmas pudding. Much of the food had to be thrown out as it was not cooked properly by the managers, meaning a week’s worth of leftovers was nonexistent. The managers had organised a ‘Secret Santa’ which added to the fun. We got Casey a beer helmet which reduced her to tears of joy, she really likes her cinder. Damien received a cool beanie and I got some stuff from the body shop. The day began very civilised but due to the crowd, everyone was pretty drunk by about 6pm. Casey had to got to bed after enjoying her new helmet too much and Chris was subjected to nail painting after falling asleep on the couch. It was a fun day but we are both looking forward to next Christmas back in Melbourne with our families.

On Boxing Day we avoided the shops and instead headed to a couple of galleries. The first was for an exhibit called ‘the art of the Album’ which Damien had wanted to see for a while. It was a retrospective on the album covers made by one photographer and was quite interesting. Next stop was the National Portrait Gallery for the ‘National Gallery Photo Portrait Prize’. This was a wonderful, diverse collection of portrait photography from posed dramatic compositions to very informal candid shots.

Damien spent New Years eve back at work but met me and a few of the girls in the city. Us girls were late so Damien spent some time in a pub waiting for us. We headed to ‘Jamie Oliver’s Italian’ restaurant for dinner then planned to watch the firework display on the Thames. Dinner was ok but not as good as when we last went. The city was very crowded, in fact too crowded and the Police had started to block off streets so there would not be too many people on the river banks. It was all a bit confusing and eventually we were all separated. I had an Ok view of the fireworks but it never is the same when you’re alone. I think next year it will be a quiet house party without all the fuss.

So it is now 2011, the year we head home to Melbourne. We are both defiantly looking forward to seeing everyone and settling down to grown up lives with clean kitchens and bathrooms. New Years day was spent in our room. Damien wasn’t feeling very well for some reason and I wasn’t very impressed with the mud he bought home from Hyde Park on his shoes, which ended up in our bed. The 2nd of January was more active with us catching a train to Hampstead Heath and having a long walk. This is a lovely area where the rich people lived back in the days before effective sewage as it is on a hill above the once festering London and has it’s own water source. There are a couple of nice view points in the park that give views of the city, but again we were more impressed with all the dogs out and about. Getting a dog when we get home is defiantly a priority for both of us. We had coffee to warm up then headed into the Manor House. This was nice and warm so it was a bit of a shock to the system when we emerged from the house and felt like the temperature had dropped about 5 degrees. This made the decision to go home very easy.