Lazing in the Sunshine

Last of the evening
sunshine.

Oh hi, THURSDAY ALREADY?... I’m sure I’ve opened with something like this before.

I’d love to tell you this week’s post is later than usual because I’ve been super busy doing fun and exciting things. I haven’t. I’ve been a lazy git, or should that be ‘lazing’ git? Yes, I’ve been a lazing git; lazing in lots of SUNSHINE!

Tickets

But that’s all gone now, we’ve had our summer. It was lovely, if a little brief. Seriously though, I hope we do get a bit more of the lovely weather. Hosting the Olympics will be a bit shit if it pisses it down the entire time! And whilst we’re on the Olympics, my first set of tickets arrived yesterday. Well, I say arrived, I actually had to walk about 2 miles to the sorting office in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to find them but shouldn’t grumble – I’M GOING! These tickets are actually for the GB football match at Old Trafford but I’m expecting some Handball tickets any day now. They come with a really personal letter from Seb Coe (‘Dear Ticket Holder’), and a Team GB sticker. Lovely. London (specifically the Star Lane stop, 60 seconds from my house) is getting steadily busier as Games Makers descend on the East End for their training sessions and to be issued their uniforms and credentials.

Hi-Vi

I’ve been issued with my orange Hi-Vi jacket for my shifts at West Ham and Canning Town and will be going for a ‘familiarisation’ session at both during the next month or so. I’m also booked on to do a night-time track walk! I’ll turn up at 10.30pm one night at the end of June and after the last train has left the station and the power is switched off a group of about 6 of us will head down the tunnel learning about…engineering stuff. I can’t wait – the IT crowd don’t get out from behind the desk very often so it’s good to get the chance to do it while I can.

From the boat

On Friday night I went on a stag do! One of the guys in the office is getting married and a big group of us went for drinks. And more drinks. Then a boat ride down the Thames. Then dancing. Lots of dancing. It was great, but good Lord did I have a hangover the next day! And worse was to come as I arrived at the office on Monday morning to discover the photos from the night had been emailed around to everyone… LUCKILY I only had one awful photo so escaped the embarrassment that some of the others faced. Pheuw! It was good to get a chance to get to know some of the rest of the (huge) team in a more relaxed environment.

Liverpool

Had a bit of a sore head on Saturday. I lay in the back garden and wondered how I could better the situation. Ice lollies – lots of them. That evening, armed with a big bottle of water and several Red Bulls I headed to Euston and jumped on a train to Liverpool. And what a night I had! The Lisbon, Bar Baa, somewhere else, somewhere else and Pink! I woke up in Formby with a totally unappealing 4 hour journey home ahead of me. It was tough. But very worth it. And this weekend will be just as busy!!


The Jubilee events look set to be FANTASTIC.

I have invested in LOADS of Union Jack

Jubilee prep.

(I refuse to say “Union Flag”…where the hell has that come from any way?!) stuff and am fully ready for the arrival of Jenla and spending the weekend wandering around London looking like a complete idiot. I do hope you will join me, wherever you are in the country.

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, You seen this? (via @berryfruitful)

Get it?!

Pps, Seen Silk Season 2?... You should. It’s great. Catch-up HERE.

A few other random pics from the week:

From the boat

Buckets of vodka

Trip on the Mersey?

Thames Path Appreciation Society

Twickenham Amateur Regatta

I’ve been back for two weeks now. I’ve shaken off the holiday blues, started a new placement, and am back in full London-swing. Although I’m back, I haven’t totally pushed NZ/Oz out my mind. I have plans to return, for a longer time, in the future. But there are a few things I want to tick off the list before then.

The past two weeks have flown by, partly due to the fact that I’m really enjoying the new placement at work. I’ve moved into IT Infrastructure and it’s likely to be an area that I’m in for some time. Placements are usually about 4 months long but what with the Games and me out volunteering a chunk of that time, we haven’t actually set any end date yet. I’ve started in the End User Computing team – involving everything to do with the user from investigating computing faults to creating new user accounts and granting users access to share drives and various softwares and applications – which, I KNOW, sounds fairly boring, but I actually find quite interesting getting to see how the back end system is all linked together. I like the customer contact and getting to talk to, and help people. Anyway, enough of that for now – more news soon…

The La's

Last week was pretty relaxed; the jetlag definitely affected me more on the return leg – AKA I did nothing of interest to tell you about. That’s not totally true, I did spend the evenings researching the IT job market in Sydney and the visa application process...
On Friday I jumped on a train and headed to Manchester Piccadilly to catch a ride with Naomi and Dad back home – via a lovely dinner at the Brinsop Arms where I talked basically uninterrupted for two hours! - sorry Fam!

  

On Sunday I went to Manchester. I went for a sensible, sophisticated lunch with a select group of close lady friends. What I got was a beer and a burger, inappropriate hilarity, penny poker, Jӓgerbombs, tequila shots and shisha pipes with a group of peer-pressuring barely-women. Such a good day (minus the footballing saga which we’re definitely not mentioning here). In fact I had such a good day that I decided it would be best if I just stayed in Manchester all night and got the 5.05am train back to London on Monday… Seemed wise at the time. I survived Monday – but it was definitely touch-and-go more than once during the day.

During the past week I went to another BCS lecture about something probably fairly uninteresting for most, I also went to my first netball practice session in a while and caught up with how the second season has gone so far – pretty much the same as last season. On Friday I finally got around to doing my practical assessment for my ICSA license. During the busy morning period I pulled on my hi-vis jacket, picked up my baton and PA walky-talky thingymajiggy and off I went announcing destinations, warning people to ‘please stand well behind the yellow line for your own safety’ and asking everyone to ‘please mind the doors, mind the closing doors please!’ - I passed! And then, it was the weekend again. I bumped into one Mr James Brook for a cheeky pint in a great place after work on Friday and then went home for a Skype session with Sydney, Australia.

Ham House

Ice Cream

And now we get to the good stuff – Saturday. I’d seen a free give away in the paper last weekend 'Great British Walks' – so I went for a walk. I got the tube all the way to the end of the District Line to Richmond and according to the route map I was supposed to head in a south easterly direction. I didn't. I soon realised it was Heineken Cup Final day! So I decided to walk to Twickenham Stadium. There was a lot going on and a lot of excited Leinster and Ulster fans! After spending a bit of time there I jumped on a bus to Kingston and joined the Thames Path at Canbury Gardens. I walked for miles, stopping along the way to enjoy the Twickenham Amateur Regatta (all VERY la-di-daa!) and the gardens of Ham House. I didn’t venture inside on this occasion but I’ll be back because it’s a bloody lovely place. I highly recommend that everyone walk some of the Thames path - it's 285km in total, starting in The Cotswolds and ending at the Thames Barrier in Greenwich. By the time I arrived back at Richmond station I was exhausted and had walked over 8 miles meaning I slept the entire way back to West Ham only just waking up and realising where I was in time.

Random Shoes

Twickenham

I’m on the early shifts this week and next, meaning I get to finish at 4pm and enjoy the last the days good weather! Which I’m hoping lasts through the weekend because on Saturday I’m heading up to Liverpool for the night. But I’ll tell you more about that next time.

Until then,

Bren x

STOP PRESS

WE WON OUR FIST NETBALL MATCH!

FINAL SCORE: 13-8

Ps, I've signed up to do shifts at a couple of stations during the first week of the Games - If you’re coming down to see any of the events and heading to the Olympic Park you might even see me at Canning Town or West Ham.

MORE PHOTOS FROM THE WEEK:

Two Weeks in Oz

Opera House

The aim is to get a summary of both weeks into this one post – a whistle-stop tour of my two week in Australia.

Here we go…

We got to Christchurch Airport at 3am and once I was checked in I headed for a big area full of comfy couches and snoozing backpackers and slept for over an hour. A noisy cleaner came round at just before 5am to let us all know that security was opening so we could move off her patch and head for our departure gates – most of us did. I fear that the couple of guys who didn’t even stir either missed their flights or got forcibly removed by the woman!

By 8am I was coming in to land at Kingston Smith Airport. I had arranged to meet OB at Circular Quay at about 9.30 but as we taxied towards the gate the captain made an announcement over the PA system that 25 bags had been left behind in Christchurch and soon after that I found out my bag was one of them! No matter!...I had no connecting flight or plans other that a day of gossip, beers and sitting in the Sydney sunshine. I found my way to the train station and was waiting for the train to the Quay when I was accosted by none other than one Miss O’Byrne!! Safe to  say ther were hugs and LOTS of excitement but, after about 2 minutes of chat it was like we saw each other yesterday. This also happened with Connie and Jenny and Heather and Jimmy – somewhat of an anti-climax (but not really!). We had no choice but to hang around in town until the evening when I could go back to the airport to collect my bag so we strolled around to the Opera House and (as it was still before 10am) we had coffee and croissant rather than getting straight on the beers. We talked for hours and before we knew it we were in seriously in need of some lunch a beer! We headed towards an area called The Rocks to a restaurant/fancy bar called The Argyle where Joe joined us for a beverage. Eventually it was time for me to collect my bag which had finally arrived in Sydney (via Auckland!) safely.

Excitement!

Sunday was Joe’s birthday! I’d found a particularly awful birthday card with a teddy bear and pink balloons on it – lovely. We had a leisurely morning before going around the corner to The Stein pub to meeting up with a mate of Joe’s from back home who moved to Sydney a while ago. We had a couple of bevs but had to move on fairly sharpish as we were heading to Paddington to see the Aussie Rules match between the Sydney Swans and North Melbourne. The Swans triumphed by quite a margin. Aussie Rules is a great game – the one game I’ve seen where players can really get away with giving someone a sly thump and getting away with it quite easily – the pitch is massive, 8 refs, 34 players, runners, water boys.. I think there was around 50 people on the pitch at one point!!

Spit to Manly

On Monday I went all Dora the Explorer and headed over to Circular Quay solo, and made my way to the Australian Museum. I saw some amazing Aboriginal painting and learnt about the Canning Stock Route. They also had a large exhibition hall filled with skeletons in rather strange posses. From there, I headed to The Domain and the Art Gallery of New South Wales where I saw a painting of Milford Sound from 1879! I explored the enormous China Town and Darling Harbour areas – stopping for a couple of pints and a read of the Sydney Morning Herald – before catching the ferry back to Manly.

With sandwiches and sun-cream packed, OB and I caught the bus out to Spit Bridge on Tuesday morning ready for a few hours and a 10km trek back to Manly. We strolled through forests, along beaches and across parks and hurried the in between bits to stay ahead of the weather that was quickly closing in. We passed some spectacular scenery and gigantic creepy crawlies before joining up with Joe for the rest of the day.

Anzac

Wednesday was a public holiday. Anzac Day is the Aussie and Kiwi Remembrance Day, with dawn and sunset services and a lot of boozing and gambling between the two. All three of us went to Kings Cross to play Two-Up and win lots of dollar –although not as much as the 85 year old veteran throwing down the $100 notes! A funtime Wednesday meant a hangover Thursday. In our infinite wisdom, we thought a trip to Bondi Beach would clear our heads – we were wrong. A bus journey that seemed to last a life time and a while on the beach watching the surfers and we felt grimmer than ever. We went for a coffee and treated ourselves to the train back into town. I was glad I got to see Bondi but the highlight of the day was the spectacular sunset we were gifted as we sailed across to Manly – Superb.

Walking the Bridge

Friday was another Dora day. I decided to venture north of the Harbour Bridge on the train and walk back. Little did I know, THE BRIDGE WOBBLES, which was quite unexpected for such a huge structure and made it tricky to go to the edge to get any decent photos. I did however get to see the nutters who decide to CLIMB the Bridge up close. Once I was safely across, I explored The Rocks and the Botanic Gardens and saw more lunchtime joggers than I’ve ever seen in one lunchtime my life. Back in Manly that evening the three of us went across to Shelley Beach to play a bit of Aussie Rules, watch the sun set and get an early night in preparation for the excitement of Saturday’s trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park.

KOALA

What can I say – It. Was. Awesome!! I had said if I didn’t do anything else the whole time I was in Australia, I wanted to see the Bridge, the Opera House, a kangaroo and a koala. Job done. As well as kangas and koalas, we saw a Tasmanian Devil and wombats which I’d never seen before. All in all a super day, followed by hours and hours of poker playing and rum/vodka drinking… 3am came around all too quickly and ensured that Sunday was a complete write off consisting of hours monging in the internet café and rehydrating.

Now this most is getting lengthy again and I’m only just getting to week 2 of my Australian adventure. But it’s OK, because I can’t really tell you much about week 2 – ‘what happens on Tartar Tour, stays on Tartar Tour’. On Monday we said our goodbyes to Joe and headed to the airport to catch a flight down to Melbourne. We spent the night at a family friends’ of the O’Byrne’s and set off the next morning for a tour of the Great Ocean Road, starting at the Twelve Apostles an taking in several lookout points and beach stops. We spent Tuesday night in a small town called Lorne, had fish and chips (and tartar sauce) for  dinner, bought a crate and pack of cards from the British girl in the local supermarket and sat in the kitchen of the hostel entertaining the French group of backpackers with Jimmy Carr-esque laughter and inappropriate ‘Would You Rather’s /‘Criuse, Marry, Shag’s. We continued our road trip on Wednesday, all the way back to Melbourne. On the way back we made a pit-stop at the lighthouse from Round the Twist and the street that doubles at Ramsey Street in Neighbours!

Great Ocean Road

 Back in Melbourne we thought it’d be rude not to sample a little of the nightlife on offer so we ventured into St Kilda and Fitzroy Street to a bar with a bathtub in and cheap booze. Oh but did we pay for it the next day… Well, actually, I didn’t… Just OB. My bad. All we were fit for on Thursday was an overly warm bus ride to the airport and getting back to Manly as quickly as possible.

And next thing I know, it’s Friday and it’s time for me to go home. And I’ll leave that there otherwise I’ll get totes emosh again about the fact I may not see the BFF for a year…or more.

And that’s it, I promise. I’ll not be banging on about the trip any more, although I can’t promise  won’t mention it from time to time… Plans a afoot for the future and being out there on a more (semi) permanent basis within a couple of years.

OK – normal service will resume with the next post – I have lots, as always, to fill you in with!

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, Not sure if non-London based folk have heard about the Cable Car, but its right outside my office and I'm going on a tour of it next week!

Dunedin

Tomahawk Beach

WARNING: I hope you’re sitting comfortably, this gets lengthy.

I really have no idea where to begin. There are only so many ways you can say how excellent a holiday was, and I realise that people will very quickly become bored of hearing about what a great time I had, but bear with me… I’ll get it out this one time and just refer people back to this post and that post and the next one all about Oz.

So, where did I leave off?.. I had just reached Dunedin and was settling into Connie and Jenny’s flat. Another excellent week was had and you can see all of the photos I posted from that week in the Facebook album New Zealand 2012 – Dunedin (I would imagine you'll need to be my Facebook friend to see them). Over the weekend I explored Dunedin a bit including the whiskey store Connie works at in the train station and I tried a dram of the ’87 – top stuff! That Saturday evening we had all decided to head into town and to one of the busy clubs on the Octagon. Jenny, Holly and I met Connie in Scotia after her shift and moved onto a couple of bars and ended up in a place that is all a bit blurry but that I know was called Carousel. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I had a wonderful time.

Paddling!

Of course, we all woke up with hangovers. And what better way to cure a hangover than a McDonalds and a football match in glorious sunshine?...None that I can think of. I went along as spectator to see Connie and her team in action where they beat a team of sprightly 13 year olds 2-1 and I lay quietly with dark glasses to cover the bloodshot eyes. After the game we visited Tomahawk Beach, had a paddle and made friends with a very excitable dog. We were due to go camping that night – we didn’t. Instead, we watched a crap film and had an early night. Good decision making.

Mmmm...

Monday was huge. Massive. Packed full of lots of Dunedin highlights – mainly booze. Jenny and Holly both had class, so it was just me and Con, let loose. We started slow with a slap up breakfast and a stroll to the Otago Museum. We spent a while wandering around some of the galleries including a section all about Sir Edmund Hillary and a bigger photo exhibition all about the history of the Otago Daily Times newspaper and stories they’ve run over the last 150 years. Suddenly we realised we’d been there for nearly 2 hours and had to jog to the other side of town to get to the Speight Brewery Tour on time. It was totally worth it! Speights is GREAT and after a tour of all the brewing floors we ended in the free bar where we were left to ‘sample’ the 6 different types of Speights. After 45 minutes, they were all equally delicious. After the tour we had about an hour before Jenny finished at Uni for the day and our table at Scotia was booked so, of course, we went for a drink and to sit in the last of the days sunshine in the Octagon and wait for Jenny. Soon enough we were in Scotia with decisions to make – what a menu!! We all got something different so we could try a bit of everything – Connie has been working here since August 2011 so I’m sure she’s making her way steadily through the menu.

As well as excellent food, Scotia has an enormous range of whiskeys, which I enjoyed quite a lot. Next stop on this ram-jam full Monday was the Dunedin Ghost Tour… Now, you might not know this about me but I’m pretty scared of a lot of things – you might describe me as a dodgem rather than a bumper car  (thanks to Sarah Millican for that one). And I particularly don’t enjoy pitch black cemeteries with screeching possums whilst being told horrific ghost stories about dead Maori folk by a creepy pale dude with a handlebar moustache, top hat and long black coat – unfortunately for me, that’s exactly what happened. I clung on to Connie and Jenny the entire time and can’t really claim to have enjoyed it – all really rather scary!... But, I did learn a lot about lots of culturally relevant people who are all (quite weirdly) buried in Dunedin’s North Cemetery. Clearly the place to be!

Steep

Really steep!

Tuesday was a much more relaxed affair. Connie and I went to Baldwin Street – The Steepest Street in the World. We strolled up it, unlike two energetic girls who jogged up and down in the time it took us to get out the car! In the afternoon we visited Cadbury’s World which is in the middle of town – a bit smaller than the Cadbury’s World in Bournville but we were all busy dealing with our hypoglycaemic naps to grumble. We went for a bit of a drive, got ‘$5 chips’ from the chippy and had an early night.

Jen is off Uni on Wednesdays so we drove the entire length of the Peninsula to the Royal Albatross Centre, had coffee overlooking the sea in the lovely warm sunshine. We drove back via Allen’s Beach and the coastal high road – epic. Both Con and Jen had to go to work in the evening so I headed back to the house to watch Kiwi movie, ‘Boy’. Holly and I wandered into the Uni and around the library (YAY) until we found some of Holly’s mates, we went for a Rob Roy’s (MASSIVE ice cream) and eventually made it to OUSA where Jenny works and where we decided that we would go out for a few bevs once she finished. So at about 11pm we headed to Pint Night – a screechy metally/rock band later, Connie had finished work and joined us for a few.

On Thursday Connie made me sleep in a cave. I’m not joking. Luckily, it was a pretty cool cave at the end of a pretty cool beach under a sky FULL of lots of pretty cool stars. We chatted for hours, used up all of the wood, got steadily merry and slept like babies. But before I got to enjoy all of that, Connie made me collect all sorts of wood and kindling and lug it from the car all the way down the entire length off the beach – a beach call LONG Beach – and all she carried was a few beers…

Oh, and I got a tattoo, but we’ll quickly skim over that fact because I haven’t actually told the parents…SURPRISEEEEE!!! 

Before.

After.

And all too soon week two was over.

We woke up to an old fella walking his dog around the cave, said a friendly good morning, packed up all the stuff and headed back into Dunedin. Connie had to head off to work so I said my goodbyes and set to packing up my rucksack. I tagged along with Jenny and Holly as they shopped for new outfits for the big Friday night out. We went for some dinner and back to the house and as people began to arrive for pre-drinks I had to leave for the night bus to Christchurch.

All in all, an absolutely fantastic week 2. It was great to get to see where Con and Jen have made home for almost a year now and it was easy to see how it’ll be hard to leave back to Manchester in July. I arrived at Christchurch Airport sad to leave such a beautiful country after meeting some great people but VERY excited to get to Sydney and see the BFF for the first time in over 6 months.

And I think for now I’ll have to leave it there because this is already twice as long as it should be and I’ve still two weeks to tell you about!

Safe to say I’m taking my time readjusting to 9-5 life so writing a couple of catch-up blogs is my chance to go back there…as is this: Escape Plan is a GO!

But I’ll be talking to the parents about that this weekend................

Lot’s going on this week including the beginning of placement 3 – But I’ll tell you more about that next week.

Until then,

Bren x

Ps, So many highlights but here are my top 3 from New Zealand:

1 - Milford Sound on a sunny day.

2 - A boozy couple of nights in Queenstown.

3 - Camping, anywhere. But specifically on beaches or in caves.