My First Year in London

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Good Things Come To Those Who Tweet.

…OMG It’s Thursday already!

Even beer sized Coke
didn't help me

I’ve had a busy week. I’m knackered. But I’ve lots to tell you…

First things first, I failed at Lent. My bad. A solid two weeks completed – I’m happy with that. There’s only so much bad red wine a girl can take and I reached my limit after the weekend in Bath. So tonight, I’m kicking back, watching the football (bollocks!), and enjoying a well deserved cold beer. I’ll tell you more about why I think it’s so deserved later…

I want to tell you a little about Twitter.

Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay…for now at least.

I for one love it. And so do many of the other however many million users. There are several ways you can use Twitter and I encourage you to sign up or at least find out more about it #GiveItATry. I’ll be honest; I mainly use it for following celebrities, finding out what people are saying about stuff going on in the world (and throwing my opinion into the mix) and for anything a bit too geeky for Facebook. You can see what I’m saying over in that clever little box on the right side of this page, or go to actual Twitter by clicking on my name below:

@ThatGirlBren

*I try not to, but every now and again I like to send

a ‘I’m eating toast’ kind of boring tweet. You’ve been warned.

I ‘follow’ the tweets of around 300 people. Some people I know, some of the aforementioned celeb types, some news/world stuff and some stuff to do with things I’m interested in like, sport, travel, Manchester stuff, London stuff etc etc... In the past I’ve got some great stuff from Twitter, including winning theatre tickets and getting guest list to events. And it was on Friday evening that, through the greatness of Twitter (I can’t actually remember which of the 300 accounts I follow it was that tweeted about it – possibly @TimeOutLondon), I found out about the TNT Travel Show 2012.

Simon Reeve:
'The Indian Ocean'
BBC2, 2012

'We came, we saw,
we never went home'

So instead of heading down to Clapham for football training on Saturday morning, I continued on westwards towards Earl’s Court. The travel show was excellent. It was full of stands from different companies all flogging discounted trips and tours for all over the world. I had a right good chat to a bloke about my trip through southern and eastern Africa for about half an hour, enjoyed a seminar by Simon Reeve, picked up a free guide book on Australia and New Zealand (FOUR WEEKS TO GO!) and a free Gold Card from @hostelworld, and found out more about the logistics of working abroad (did you know that the minimum wage in Australia is over £10 an hour?!). Once I made it back to the house I booked my hostel for the first night in Christchurch on 7^th April and Googled loads of other NZ/Oz stuff. Everything is getting rather exciting now! Next up, booking flights to Melbourne and back, and finding out the quickest route to Gatwick from my new office in West London.

That’s right, I’m moving office again. The era of the one stop, 16 minute commute is over for now. As of Monday my department will be based back over at St. James’ Park and my commute increases to around 45 minutes for then next four weeks. Tomorrow I will mainly be packing up my desk into a crate and being sent home at 3pm so the movers can come in and start loading the moving vans. Early Friday finish – Huzzah!

On Sunday the weather was like this:

Shit one...

…so I stayed in bed pretty much all day. I watched some DVDs with the housemates and generally chilled out. An all-round great day.

On Monday night I played netball, again. We lost, again. But after putting an advert on the TfL intranet and having a good amount of interest we had a player come to join us and has decided to play next season!

Tuesday will forever be known as the Night of the Nando’s. Michaela and I headed to the O2 to take advantage of my 20% discount – POW! However, it turns out I’m only supposed to get the discount until 5pm AND only on my meal AND not when there is an event on at the O2. After charming the guy who was serving us (and after his manager massively pissed him off) he let us break all three of these rules and we chowed down on a fair amount of chickeny goodness. And afterwards enjoyed a great digesting session…(don’t ask…).

BoJo, front and centre.

Yesterday I was out at West Kensington for day three of my ICSA training. The morning session taught me all I need to know about the types of tickets we sell and the pricing system – such a nightmare, soz about that! The afternoon session was all about the gate line and how the different types of gates work and how to fix them when they go wrong. As I was over in West London I headed to the Hammersmith & Fulham town hall for People’s Question Time – a chance to ask the @MayorOfLondon and his GLA assembly members about issues affecting Londoners. I found it really interesting. A lot of issues were very local to H&F but with a 1000+ strong crowd, quite a few Londonwide issues were raised too. I’ll admit it, I like BoJo. The media may have tagged him ‘Bumbling Boris’ but he’s clearly a very intelligent guy. He’s quick witted, personable and engaging. Still, I’ll never vote for him… Shame.

Silly cap

Bethnal Green

And finally, it’s Thursday and I’m drinking beer. This morning I left the house at 6am, headed to the middle of Hackney to stand in the cold for hours, wearing a silly cap and headache inducing hi-vis, teaching people how to use the @BarclaysCycle Hire bikes. Today was the East London extension launch of the bikes and they proved very popular. It was great to get the chance to talk to local people and hear their (positive!) feedback. And I got to cycle around for free too – bonus. After that I had to head back to the house to change then get into the office for a couple of meetings. All in all it’s felt like a right long day and this beer taste chuffin’ ace.

This weekend I’ve got Brennan visitors, a family engagement do, a date with Charles Dickens and only a 4-day working week.

Until next time (which will be along in no time at all!),

Bren x

PS, As it’s International Women’s Day, here are 10 of my favourite women I follow on Twitter (in no particular order):

PPS, So I finished Homeland. Worth a watch… but I was a bit disappointed with the ending of series 1.

PPPS, Other random pictures from this week:

DVD Sunday

Joss Stick Sunday

Homemade
Cookies Sunday

Not the same as
beer

Sunny Star Lane

ICSA training gates

#PQT

Canalside
Bethnal Green

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

"Why’re You Intimidating My Wife?"

...is a great question (and a last minute blog-title rethink). I’ll fully(ish) explain it later. For now I’ll revert back to my original title: Beer, Balls, Bath and Bits of Everything Else.

Beer.
Tuesday was Pancake Day AKA the day everyone half heartedly agrees to give something up for Lent, because…

A) They want to acknowledge the sacrifice Jesus made when he went in to the desert/wilderness for 40 days, something happened, a stone was moved... (I forget the exact story).

B) They have massively failed in their attempts at sticking to a New Years Resolution.

Or, the one that applies to me...

C) Everyone else is doing it and, actually, I want to play too.

Decide amongst yourselves which of the above applies to you.

I haven’t ‘done’ Lent since second year of university when the 6 41-Second House girls (plus OB) gave up one thing each and the loser had to buy everyone else a Nando’s. I had to give up pizza and pasta which happened to be the only thing I could cook at the time. It was tough but we all made it, and my cooking skills haven’t improved much since.

I’ve given up, ‘all drinks that are traditionally served in a pint glass’. Now I know what you’re thinking, “but that leaves a world of alcoholic options” but trust me, for a girl who had a first taste of booze sneakily out of dad’s pint glass many moons ago – this is tough. Nobody, not one person, can watch a football match with a glass of Red and have their footballing opinions taken seriously. One week in and I’m doing OK.

And when I say ‘OK’, in mean I’m dying for a pint!!...

I seriously doubt I’ll make the whole 6 weeks. The real test will come in Manchester in a few weekends time… We shall see!

Balls.

Netball – we’re now 4 games in and we are actually getting better! We had our best loss so far this week with a 12-7 defeat. I’m rather pleased with that. I stayed again for a second match with a team who was struggling for players and won that one 13-11. Then I shuffled home, aching, bruised and exhausted. More of the same next week!

A really bad picture of training...

Football – On Saturday morning I headed down to Clapham Common again where I enjoyed another training session with the AFC Phoenix Academy. We did some fitness training, drills and skills, and finally a 10(ish)-a-side match. The sun was shining, I was having a great time and before I knew it, it was 12pm and I had to dash across London back to the house then head back to Paddington Station ready for the journey to…

Bath.

Yes, on Saturday afternoon I made my return to Bath to visit Nat and Binks who, along with their housemates, were hosting a Pre-lash Party before heading to the SU night, Fuzzy Ducks. The theme at the SU was Cowboys and Cowgirls but the housemates had decided it would be much more fun for the theme to be – Cool Runnings! An excellent movie and a great fancy dress theme. Unfortunately, and in a very uncharacteristic move, I didn’t get my act together in time and sort out an outfit… So Binks basically tricked me into wearing ridiculous zebra leggings – which, after a bottle of red wine and a shot of Stroh, I thought was a fabulous idea. The photos (treat yourself at Facebook) tell a different story entirely. I had a flipping brilliant night, great to see the girls and even a surprise pit-stop from Becky who was in Bath too.

Hangover hilarity (and this video you can see on YouTube) is what led me to this week’s title – top stuff, proper ROFLs. Clearly I was late to this with already thousands of views but it just shows how some people are properly mental - pretty lengthy video so highlights include:

4.46 - "this'd be great on YouTube"..."are you threatening me?!"

6.55 - "why're you intimidating my wife?" [repeat 20000 times]

Sadly I’ll miss the next Africa Gang get together over the Easter weekend. I can’t complain too much though as I’ll be in New Zealand! In other Big Trip news, it’s now only 5 weeks away and I really need to plan…stuff. I’m not sure what, but I feel a need to write lists or make a spread sheet or something...

Passed!

Bits of Everything Else.

I got my results from the ITIL exam I took and it was all good news! I passed and have the certificate to prove it. In other BCS related news, this week I went to a lecture hosted at the BCS HQ close to Covent Garden – ‘HiTech Transport – Were Is IT Going?’. Geeky, yes. But actually rather interesting and…excellent catering. And wine.

RUN sculpture outside the
Copper Box (Handball)

On Friday I went to a TfL organised event at the Olympic Park in Stratford. Every TfL employee has been invited to attend a Fit For London session where we got the chance to ask senior directors questions about preparation for the Games, TfL's Olympic legacy, and how TfL can work more efficiently in the future. After the presentation and Q&A session we were loaded onto double-decker buses and set off into the Park. I really enjoyed it and thought it was quite cool getting to see it as it's being built - not many people get the chance to do that and so far it's looking incredible.

I also found out this week that I won tickets to the recording of David Mitchell’s BBC Radio 4 show The Unbelievable Truth in a couple of weeks. Ace news!

This week I’ve got a few things on at work that should be quite interesting; a writing workshop (fingers crossed these get a bit better!), Cycle Hire training and the annual TfL All Finance (including IM) conference. All followed by a weekend with so far no plans – possibly time for London Adventure III.

Until next time,

Bren x

PS, The only photo I got in Bath:

PPS, I learnt about this at the HiTech lecture - amazing:

PPPS, Anyone been watching Homeland?...I won’t lie, I couldn’t watch at a one-per-week pace. I’m 8 eps in and it’s pretty great. If you’re not watching it, get on 4OD and catch up!

PPPPS, Some more photos from the trip around the Olympic Park:

Pre-presentation
'Thought Wall'

The 'Who Are You
Supporting' wall.

Someone with a
sense of humour!

Crap picture of the
Athletes Village

View from the front of the bus

Weird clouds

One of the main entrances
to the stadium

The River Lea

River runs through
the whole park

Velodrome

Start of the BMX track

Basketball Arena

Sunshine

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

And the Brit Award goes to…

Red Carpet Queue

...loads of people who we didn’t find on our celeb-hunt this evening. I’m just back from the red carpet at the O2 where the Brit Awards were hosted tonight. Michaela suggested we do it. I went along with it… and OK, I’ll admit it, I enjoyed it. I spotted Jessie J, Pixie Lott, Fearne and Holly, Plan B (while he was sober), Dizzee Rascal and more...

I’ll apologise if this blog isn’t very well written. I’m watching Coldplay open the awards and now Florence.. Totes amazeballs.

But for now let’s go way back to Monday last week. I headed to Westminster City Hall for the first day of my ITIL Foundation course. I was there for 3 days learning all about IT Service Management stuff and had an exam on the Wednesday afternoon. I should find out in the next in week or so whether I’ve passed, fingers crossed!

Brennan's at
00'00'00

On Wednesday evening I headed to Convent Garden to meet up with Traum and Calla before they headed to see the Lion King. We found an Old Man Pub, treated ourselves to a few ciders and found the comfy seats upstairs. I was still knackered from the weekend and so after a good ol’ catch up I headed home and got straight to sleep ready for the first day in the office of the week and prepared to face 100+ emails!

Little did I know that at 10am on Thursday morning I’d get a call from a guy I know, Craig, who works in HR and I met when I went to the careers fair in Loughborough a few months ago… He needed someone to cover this years interviews of the next intake of grads! And so, just one year on, I was sat at the other side of the desk as the final 11 applicants were put through their paces with interviews, presentations, written exercises, group discussions and an IQ-style test. It was draining (for me!!!). Listening to their answers, taking notes and thinking of probing questions all at the same time – tricky! At the end of the day we had a ‘wash-up’ session and final decisions were made. It was a really useful thing to get some experience of and quite strange to think that they were discussing me at a similar ‘wash-up’ one year previous.

On Friday I finally got a chance to catch up with everything I’d missed from earlier in the week. Alas, that was cut short as I left at 2.30pm to head to our office over in Southwark for a lecture with speakers from the Deep Tube Programme, Crossrail project, and the new Fairs & Ticketing wave-and-pay project. All very interesting, but perhaps a bit too engineery for me – I still don’t know what a train bogie is…but I know it made me silently giggle ever time anyone said it. That finished just after 4.30pm and I dashed straight home to clean and tidy (glamorous, I know) in preparation for the Brennan sister’s arrival!

Rice Balls

After collecting them from Euston at 10pm, Friday was a quiet night with a couple of glasses of wine and hearing all the goings on with the Fam and peeps Up North. On Saturday we headed out all over London! Greenwich, Stratford, the south bank and the O2. We climbed up to the Royal Observatory and took silly pictures over the Prime Meridian and started the Heat Tour of London… Yes, that’s right, Jess bought a copy of Heat Magazine and got lots of pictures in front of famous landmarks…much to Naomi’s horror and my amusement. Highlights of Saturday included, rice balls, bratwurst, laughing in the face of pissing down rain and Naomi realising that the Tate Modern wasn’t the gallery she was thinking of when she insisted it was factored into weekend plans. We got back to the house fairly knackered but powered through and headed out with Michaela to Heaven where Cher Lloyd was playing this week…………………………. Thank Christ we missed her because whilst we were raving upstairs she was miming to the horrendous song that is Swagger Jagger. Bore off love.

Heat Tour hits Tate

Brennan's in Heaven

Headache. Headachey pain pain headache. And as I jumped on Jess with my fake, Sunday morning enthusiasm for making the most out of the weekend, carpe-ing the diem, only living once and generally loving life, I’m pretty sure she hated me right at that moment… But off we went in time to see Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. It was huge, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people!! We saw the band and had a wander around in the sunshine and up the Mall as the crowds dispersed. We got coffees, lunch and had a sit down (as I finally sobered up). We went to Oxford Street and found the secret little hide away St. Christopher’s Place. After more coffee we decided that the best plan of action was to find HMV (which turned out to be in Selfridges) and treat ourselves to DVDs then head home for a PHAT nap before the girls headed back to Euston for their 9pm train back to Manchester.

Tiny Ben

I had such a good weekend! It was great to see the sisters and have a laugh and giggle and dance and drink. TOP EFFORT LADIES.

This week I’ve played another netball match, done some more ICSA training and been to a British Computing Society lecture. I’m also heading to Bath at the weekend for some Fuzzy Ducks funtimes.

In other news, I've given up 'all things that are traditionally served in a pint glass' for lent. It's going to be a loooong month...

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, AS IF they cut off Adele’s acceptance speech at the Brits… RUDE. They were already late for the news, just let the woman say her thank yous… tut.

Pps, After going to the BCS lecture, I'll be telling you more about this next time... Watch it and be amazed...

Ppps, some more pics from the Heat Tour of London: