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.