John & Judith's wedding day

It has dawned bright and cool. I can see the faint remnants of a fiery red sunrise out the window towards the east. Here's hoping it will be a gorgeous day. John rang last night and he sounded a wee bit nervous, but he says he's very happy. Judith is lovely. Since we've met her we've realised John has made a good decision. Up till then we were wondering how a month together then two years apart whilst engaged was going to go... But Judith is sensible, and they have lived together for 6 months now. I think they know what they're doing. They've got as much chance as anybody making this committment. And they look happy together.

Mike & Karen (Mum met them in Dunedin in Forth St - Mike is a PhD student in maths, and Karen is an accountant - Mum quizzed Mike on how he sees rubbish bins as volumes and curves - but he doesn't recall that - fortunately!) have arrived in London after touring Europe. Mike is John's best man. They stayed here in our flat from last Sunday, to yesterday morning. Then they had to be in Cranfield (Judith's parent's house) for wedding rehearsals last night. It's been really nice to catch up with them. They are still living in Hobart- they may have started calling tax certificates 'Group Certificates' (they are called IR12's in NZ), but they haven't started called duvets 'doonas' yet. They'll probabaly be there at least another year. Bit of a shame we didn't visit them while they lived there.

Last Friday I chopped my hair off. I was standing in the tube at the start of the week and thought 'That's it!. I went to a hairdresser's on Friday and wavered ever so slightly when she asked what I wanted (after 5 years of saying 'Just a trim, thanks' it was almost an automatic reflex) but said I wanted a change. So, I have a bob - jaw length... Of course, my hair insists on curling funny at the ends; I have to blow dry it to death to get it to stay vaguely respectable. I'll send a photo if I find a decent one.

We've booked our train tickets to Edinburgh for Christmas, then back here on Sunday night. Then, up again on Wednesday night (New Years) and back again on Sunday night. The English don't get the day after Hogmanay off at all. So, I've asked for a day off to join the Scots in celebrating the New Year. The train will get us to Edinburgh at 9pm on New Years Eve, so it had better not be late for the festivities!

First thoughts of London

Hiya. Winter is upon us here in ye olde London town. We received our first snowfall early this week. Chilly stuff. I said to Mike, "Is it raining?" as we were preparing for work Tuesday morning. He opened the window (as the condensation means we can't see through the window) and I stuck my head out. Something looked a bit different, and it dawned on me that the white stuff all over the cars and rooves was snow! Brrr... And set to get worse.

As far as my thoughts on living in the UK go, I still haven't been here long enough to really know what it's like. But, I have noticed some things. One of the amazing things to consider is that, genetically, I am now living in my perfect environment. I have only ever lived in places where Anglo-Saxon people are not native (Maoris in NZ, and Aborigines in Aus). But, when I look around at people here, they all look like me. They have my colouring, my genes, my language... My race is native to these climes. In a funny way, it is the reason why it is so home-like, I guess. The genetic prodigal daughter has returned. Of course, my heritage is Scots and not English... Don't worry, I'll never lose sight of that! But the genes didn't have political boundaries to keep them pure back when we crawled out of the caves, so my analogy does hold true to a certain extent.

Another thing I find myself doing differently is watching people. I've never been one to pay attention to people as I trot along. I think you become oblivious to people when you live in a large city like Melbourne; you sort of switch off when you wander around. But here, you can sit and look at people - and there are sooooo many people - and wonder what their lives are like. Their faces are miserable looking (for the most part, but not everybody is like that) and you just find yourself wondering where they live and what they do. And there are beggars everywhere, pickpockets, massive fraud... I'll be a hardened Londoner yet.

The tube system is diabolical. I use it every day and so far I think it's only been working adequately on 50% of occasions. Today I had to use the overland train to Watford. All trains running in and out of Euston were suspended due to a fire on a train at Wembley. One train was running, and fortunately it was going to Watford Junction, but it stopped at every station from Euston to Watford. Took 45 mins instead of the usual 20. But I got there in the end, although there were still delays when I returned at 1:30 to London. Then, when I was returning home on the tube, there was a station emergency at King's Cross and everybody had to evacuate the station. I had no idea how to get home otherwise, but by the time I had sorted out an alternative route, the station was cleared and I jumped on a tube home. Bit of a nightmare public transport day.

Our wee hoose is cute. It serves its purpose nicely. Although Mum will be disappointed to hear that we are up two flights of stairs. But less steep than at Connaught Terrace, and an internal set of stairs too. They smell a bit musty, but the flat is fine. We have central heating that comes on if the temperature falls below a certain level of comfort (I think Mike has it set to 20 degrees or something). So, it is warm, but not stifling like most places inside in London. They love the heat turned up here! We don't have a couch, but that's about all we need. But, that's not urgent. And if we're lucky, the landlord might buy one for the flat. You never know your luck.

We went to the rugby at Wembley last weekend. It was a great feeling, to be sitting there watching the All Blacks soundly beat Wales. The score was 42-7 but the All Blacks still aren't playing at their best. It'll be nice to see them get their act together against England this weekend. If they win this weekend (and looks likely) then they will have played their international matches this year unbeaten. An improvement over the single loss they suffered last season. Ohhh, it's nice to follow the All Blacks and be world beaters and ignore the NZ cricket team. Although they did well to save the last test against Australia. And they were a bit unlucky in the first test. Still, we wont mention the match against Victoria. Best not bring that up!

After the rugby match finished last Saturday, it took us 1 hour to walk the 200 yards (how ever far a yard is (??) - that's the distance I heard someone behind me say we'd covered. Haven't the Brits realised the rest of the sane world is metric?) to the tube station. It was just like a sheep pen (with lots of kiwis in the crowd there were the obligatory Baaaa sounds that all kiwi men seem obliged to utter when being herded) with people packed so tightly into the cordoned-off street that it was definitely a slow shuffle step to the station. We had a few happy kiwis doing hakas along the way too. It was good fun.

Finsbury Park and first London jobs

Looks like our travelling is at an end for the next six months or so – we’ve moved into a wee flat in Finsbury Park, and our stuff from NZ finally arrived after three months (er, did they really say six weeks when I sent it off in August?!)  Ah, was good really – it coincided almost exactly with our flat being available, so we had it delivered on the day after we took possession on the 18th of Nov.  Up til then, from when we arrived on the 7th of Oct, we’ve been camping in people’s houses – first with friends Richard Theresa at Muswell Hill, who I know from school and Uni, and have been living here for three years now.  But Richard’s sister and her boyfriend came down in late Oct – they’re travelling around the place working in pubs and stuff - so it was going to be 4 in the sofa-bed, so we moved to Simon's for a couple of weeks.  Simon’s bought himself a flat near Waterloo station that is very nice, and is leading a great lifestyle.  He’s getting sick of Treasury though and sounds like he’ll move on to, I dunno, whatever economist people move onto in the private sector.

The flat is quite nice – the area seems okay, there is only the occasional stabbing and mugging to contend with.  Nah, it isn’t exactly Highgate or Sloane Square, but then again it isn’t Brixton either.  Do you know the area?  Seems to be quite liveable to me.  The flat’s on the second floor of some terrace housing (or  ‘Coronation Street flats’, as they say in NZ) and is the same sort of deal as our Brooklyn flat only it’s half the size and you get a view of Arsenal Football Stadium instead of Wellington harbour.  (The stadium isn’t very close but you can see it!).  The landlord just redecorated the place before we moved in and they’ve done a very good job – the interior is very nice.  And, woo-hoo, it’s got a DECENT SHOWER – the first one we’ve found yet in Britain.  Full mains pressure hot water and a nozzle you stand under, instead of some dribbly thing you have to wave over yourself while sitting in a bath.  Lack of showers is probably the biggest mystery to me in the UK.

We’ve also both got jobs now – Angela’s been at hers a week and a half, and I start on Monday.  Things were a lot more quiet than we were expecting – I’m very glad we didn’t listen to all the streets-paved-with-gold optimists in NZ, and brought enough money to cover ourselves.  Basically there isn’t any contract work around at the moment, because everyone wants to work the winter, and no-one wants to offer jobs now because Xmas is smack in the middle of it all.  So about 3 weeks ago Angela started looking for permanent jobs instead (since she can, with her Scottish mum ‘n all) and there were LOADS!!  She was getting about 10 calls a day between when she put her name forward, and when she signed on the dotted line.  She’s working for a group called Spargo Consulting, who just send her out to do work at various client sites.  Me, I got a job YESTERDAY!!  Woo hoo!  I’ve got a 2 month contract with Andersen Consulting, upgrading an in-house system they’ve got to handle their logging of hours worked, to work with their new e-mail system.  Should be straightforward – a bit of money in the bank and then off snowboarding in February!