My First Year in London: Brixton Academy and a Trip Up North

It’s Wednesday already! Apologies to my most dedicated readers (Dad) but after a last minute decision to head north for 24hrs my usual Sunday evening writing session was instead replaced by a roast dinner, BBC1 period dramas and gallons of tea.

After a busy weekend at the Boat Show and exploring Greenwich, the beginning of last week was really rather quiet. My main task was to catch up with various friends’ travel photos and blogs and remind myself where in the world they all are now! Brazil, Vietnam and New Zealand... time differences alone make it fairly difficult to coordinate appropriate Skype time but they all seem to be having a brilliant time and now it's only 70ish days until New Zealand!! I've added a countdown timer in the top-right of the page. The end of the week was taken up with the excitement of Jen and Nik coming to London to see Ed Sheeran and do lots of touristy stuff.

The only half decent photo I took.

After the only minor setback of getting the wrong train from Piccadilly, they eventually arrived at Canning Town where we just about had time to do the grand tour of the Hovel, drink a box of wine, and get ready to go. We headed to Brixton Academy where we met up with Jen’s friend Chloe and made our way to ...the bar. Ed was brilliant and the support act, Abandoman (an Irish comedy rap duo (or was I just seeing double by that point?)) was equally as good. After the gig we headed to a local bar (primarily because we all needed the loo) and on into town. Because of Nik’s Manchester door-staff connections we skipped to the front of the fairly large queue and got in for free – Bonus! After several hours of dancing (swaying) and when the lights came on, we figured it was time ~~to leave~~ for Chinese street food (obviously) before jumping on the night bus and Jen insisting we sat at the top, right at the back. As much as I try to fight it, there is something about a night bus that compels me to sleeeeeeep!...and I knew we weren’t on the bus that terminated at Canning Town. Dangerous. All was well though, and I woke up just in time!

Happy Weekend!

Nightbus WIN!

They were supposed to stay all weekend but Jen being dead grown up and sensible (ROFL......) decided that it was best if they headed back up to Manchester on the Saturday evening in order for her to plan and prepare for her 8 week primary school placement starting that Monday. With that in mind and coupled with the fact that I missed mum’s big 5-0 birthday during the week, I decided to do a 24hr dash up north. So on Saturday, after finally managing to rouse Nik out of her hangover-coma by wafting bacon butty smells towards her, we set off on a London adventure. We started at Stratford where downing a shandy each was the key to getting rid of the hangover and gave us the opportunity to visit alovely little bar called Cow – highly recommended. We then headed to Borough Market where we wandered around sampling different breads and chilli oils and cheeses and nuts (not me) and lots of other things and of course bought some a-mazing Pieminister pies (which went down a treat with dad later that night). After quick pit-stops at The Tate, St. Pauls and Big Ben we made our way to Euston to soak up the very tail ends of the hangover with a somewhat disappointing (but eventually free) jacket potato. A two hour snooze later I said my goodbyes to Jen and Nik, jumped in the awaiting car and dad and I headed to surprise mum! She had no idea I was coming up and thought she wouldn’t see me until March – so her shocked face was brilliant!

Thanks mum!

On Sunday, I didn’t really do much other than sit nervously through the Arsenal vs Utd match and look forward to the Sunday roast. Brilliant. This new placement is pretty pro-flexi-time and on Monday I took full advantage of it... I thought I might get the train back to London on Sunday evening but that idea was swiftly scrapped when I realised I was too chilled out and had a glass of red wine in hand that I wasn’t about to rush. Monday morning as the alarm buzzed at 5.45am I only regretted it a tiny bit. I was in Manchester and on the 6.35am train south bound in no time and awoke a couple of hours later with ‘train hair’ which I could no nothing about all day, and a fellow morning train snoozer next to me.

And now it’s Wednesday! This week I’ve been to the first session of the new TfL (Totally Fabulous Ladies) Netball Team. Matches start in a couple of weeks time so hopefully we’ll be good to go by then… I’ve also been to a charity pub quiz which managed to raise £650 for Mencap and I won a prize in the raffle!

This weekend I’ll be meeting up with some friends in Clapham – last time we got together everything got a bit rowwwdy, so hopefully more of the same!

OH! As if I almost forgot to mention........... The land lady has found someone to move in!!..and she seems nice and normal and one of the first things she asked was whether anyone was up for going out - I think we're going to get on very well.

Until next time,

Bren x

PS, I haven’t really talked much about work because, well, it’s work… But if you want to hear from the CIO of TfL you can do so by clicking on this link. I haven't read the full thing but apparently it's alright... but whatever he/the article claims, London will be horrifically busy during the Olympics and nothing will change that.

PPS, I'll update with more photos once Jen uploads pic and I can steal them taaaa...

UPDATE: here we go...