My First Year in London: Thank You.

A nice end to the day

Amazing how those two simple little words can change your mood instantly. Had a bit of a hectic day; I've been out of the office since Thursday and had a lot to catch up with, including a tricky dispute to work through between two groups... Just as I was about to tear my hair out, a ‘thank you’ message popped up on instant messenger and all was right with the world (that, and the fact that it was basically home time).

Anyway, lots to catch you up with!..and you’ll have to forgive me if this is a bit rambly and disjointed – it’s Transfer Deadline Day and we’ve got 5 Premiership games to get through tonight; a totally excellent Tuesday.

So last week, I skimmed over the fact that I started playing netball for the first time in 6 years – partly because I didn’t really want to dwell on it too long because of the ‘banter’ I knew I’d get from the ol’ football girls back home (love you too, girls…). But, I’m coming out (again)…I am a netball girl! There, I said it. And you know what?... It all came flooding back – I used to be pretty damn good you know. And I’m really enjoying it so that’s the main thing. Team TfL had our second session yesterday and we’ve progressed onto backline passes and set plays! Our first match is on Monday with a full match report to follow shortly after that. Fingers crossed everyone.

I also mentioned a charity pub quiz… A colleague is doing the Marathon des Sables, 156 miles in 6 days – totally hardcore. So the absolute least I could do was go to the pub and take part in the quiz to help him raise money towards his charity, Mencap. Oh, and I won a prize in the raffle, free day passes for the gym near work – I’ll take that! But the main thing to take away from that night was the new-school grad quiz team (5^th out of 10) beat the old-school grad team (9^th out of 10) by a long way.

This doesn't really show the sheer size of the room

On Friday I met Helen at a pub for a swift one before she headed back up north and I headed to one of the most bizarre experience of my life: Pro-Bingo. I joined up with a few friends and headed to The Palace* in Elephant & Castle. We had no idea what we were doing. We bought bingo books and soon realised we’d come in after the game had started… we quickly caught up and got into the swing of things. But this was not easy-going bingo. No, no.. this was the type of bingo where people got fined £2 if their mobile phones rang during a game!! The room fell silent and everyone hung on the caller’s every number. Incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it but, perhaps weirdly, I’d definitely go back! For two crucial reasons – 1) minimum prizes were about £100 for a line (JUST 5 NUMBERS!) all the way through to £3000 for the last Full House of the night. And 2) easily the cheapest bar I’ve found since moving to London, £2.70 a pint – I’ll be seeing you again!

Clapham
Common

On to the weekend and on Saturday morning I headed to Canary Wharf for an excellent breakfast and to watch the Utd match (let’s not talk about it). I also had some reading to do to prepare for Monday’s day of training which I’ll tell you about shortly. Later Saturday evening I headed down to Earlsfield and Clapham for the first time since moving here to meet up with the Africa Gang. What can I say… Another awesome evening and just really great to see everyone. Binks even managed to put the dissertation on the back burner for 12 hours and surprise us all by coming down from Bath for the night – although upon Binks’ disclosure that of the 10,000 words she had written, approximately zero were her discussion or literature review, I did feel perhaps our peer pressure had gone a little far! However, as someone who did their entire dissertation (research to write-up) in 6 days I was in no position to comment. And yes, I am a little proud that I did that.

The good news is, we all had an awesome night in The Loft and Infernos and Binks managed to get her dissertation in by the deadline yesterday**. Legendary.

Hangover walk over Tower Bridge

Sunday passed me by in a bit of a haze. I do know it took me about 3 hours to get from Clapham back to the house (usually takes about 30/40 minutes) because I needed to get off the Tube at London Bridge for some fresh air and the biggest bottle of water I could find. Once off, I decided I might as well have a bit of a walk and ended up walking all the way to Tower Hill (with several rest breaks!). I spent the afternoon napping, watching All McBeal and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself. And then the photos appeared on Facebook…..

Monday morning arrived and I headed not to the office, but to West Kensington and Ashfield House to begin my ICSA (customer support agent) training. Once I’ve got my license I’ll be able to work on the stations doing various duties such as dispatching trains, operating the gate line and generally being helpful and smiley and informative to passengers. LU have had a huge drive to train up as many people as possible ahead of the Olympics. We’ve also had to state which is our ‘home’ station – I’ve nominated West Ham (I live equidistance from Canning Town and West Ham) which will be massively busy all summer!

And that rather lengthy ramble, brings us right up to today. As the half time whistles blow and absolutely nothing exciting is happening transfer-wise I’ll be off.. Roll-on MOTD!

Until next time,

Bren x

* Obviously not The Palace

** Unconfirmed but fingers massively crossed!

PS, With my ICSA training underway I’ve gone all Olympic transport geek… Not quite a Website of The Week, but a must-see if you’re coming to London during Summer 2012: PLEASE VISIT THIS WEBSITE!

PPS, Some more pictures from this week: