One way to the UK?

Well seeing as tomorrow is Easter Friday, Holy Day, and Mara and I are heading up to Cork for a girls weekend/reunion I thought I’d better quickly write about last weekend, which was spent in Dublin helping the Irish and thousands of tourists celebrate St Patrick’s Day in style! St Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, contrary to the popular beliefe that he drove the snakes away, that’s not actually why he’s famed and given a day in his honour.

Dublin is a lovely city - quite small and homely and with a massive spike in the middle of town… literally just called the Dublin Spike. The weather wasn’t exactly on our side for the weekend however we still made the most of visting a new city, and as it wasn’t windy (like London) it was actually pretty tolerable. On the Friday after checking into the B&B, well located right near town, we headed off down the main shopping streets and visited Trinity College… started because the Queen (way back then) was worried ‘her people up there’ were heading off to Europe to be educated. The College is quite nice, and small which I’m sure is pleasant for the students there… as are all the pubs on every street!

We were all on a strict budget for the weekend but still managed to have a great time - vodka, juice, loaf of bread, crackers, nutella, ham and cheese and jams, oh as well as bottles of water and 5 choccie bars each to sustain us for the weekend! The B&B included a great Irish Breakfast (same as an English breakfast, but eaten in Ireland…) and the rest of the time, when we weren’t walking around or visiting coffee cafes and chocolate shops, we were on the Bulmers Cider in the various pubs we visited. Kristy and I also visited the Guinness Storehouse - quite interesting set up that takes you through how Guinness is brewed (roasted barley to give dark colour) and the best part was getting to pull our own beers. I drank a bit of it… the foam of Guinness is nice however the actual stout is definitely not my kind of drink so I won’t go ordering that anytime soon!

In Dublin we also visited St Stephen’s Green (huge green park area), Christchurch Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral and spent most of our time in (the touristy area) Temple Bar. It was really a lovely city, and I wouldn’t mind going back there apart from the fact that there’s not a massive amount of things to do there… and it rains a lot and pay in Euros seems to be a bit lower than pounds!

Well not much happening - feeling a bit isolated sometimes in such a big city! Been going to the gym lots, which fits in really well with new job  as I finish at 430pm most days (unless we have an after work function) umm so yeah, really happy too cuz I’m finally doing all my proper weights limits rather than lowering them! What else? Oh yes, I’m moving to a different gym this week due to personal issues and involvement so, so be it.

Kristy, Mara and I are heading up to Ireland for this weekend to have what will hopefully be a brilliant time, dressed in green to help celebrate St Paddy’s Day! You have to do it in the Irish capital at least once in a lifetime! I don’t drink Guiness but perhaps I might give a green pint a go…  

By the way, apparently the Guiness Book of Records was started by Guiness following a dispute in a pub that couldn’t be settled… so a record book evolved

I’m really not surprised at the comment of ‘whinging pom’ all the time because the weather over here is, for the most part, so dull! Add some sunshine to London and it would be gorgeous. Fingers, toes and everything else are crossed for a hot summer. Of course the only bad thing about the warmer weather over here (when it eventually comes) is that the tubes will be even more unbearable… uhh well!

Just a quick post - new job with Healthcare for London is still going well. The team ewnt bowling on Wednesday night and it was a really fun night out! I realised I now suck at bowling… well at least that my bowling skills are like my pool (billiards) skills in that I sometimes have good fluke shots and not much luck the rest of the time. Some team members improved as the alcohol increased in their system, others got worse. I’m happy to say I improved by second game by 16 points! It was a good night out, quite different to the hangover-inducing all nighters at the pub with the Olympics team that I’m used to, but great and sociable all the same.

This morning on my way to work we were stopped at the road crossing by a VIP escort. No idea who the fella was, but both Range Rovers (yep, black and no doubt bullet proof) must have been on their way to Buck Palace with a 3-bike escort. The little walking man was green, but one motorbike came driving up with a ‘whistle’ noise coming from it (not a siren), and just pulled up to the side (like a motoX move) in the middle of the traffic interesection and sat there on his bike, then another bike came racing through and around the corner, followed by the two rovers and another bike, and then they all continued on their way with flashing lights etc…. and the rest of us continued on our M-F march to work buildings!

Well on the way home tonight from gym I realised why most of the round-abouts here around London are dodgy little flat ones, or literally painted on the roads - it’s because the bloody normal drivers don’t know how to move out of the way for emergency services cars! It’s unbelievable, and something I’ve noticed since moving over here, that cars just do not move for emergency cars! The roads are barred/separated by metal fencing to keep the up and down traffic separate, and so even when traffic lights are red and there’s cars waiting and an emergency vehicle comes blaring up to the intersection ,the cars just don’t move! Must be too scared they’ll get in trouble for running a red light or something - I dunno!

 Well work this week was good - my effort at gym could have been a bit better though! I think I’ve settled into Healthcare for London quite well, and am enjoying myself there and getting to know the new team and my boss! Next Wednesday my small team is going bowling (10 pin) and Emma and I decided on getting a trophy for the best on the night! Then on 3 March Healthcare for London is having a posh event to welcome my boss so that should be nice! We’re moving into our new office area (2nd floor) that same day, so us girls will have to take our dressy clothes with us to wear out that evening! Oh yeah that’s the other thing to get used to at my new workplace - it is primarily females, quite the opposite to my Olympics Logistics team with 3 women and about 34 men! Perhaps that’s the natural split between Construction and Health industries!?

Wednesday night I went out for drinks with my old ODA team and it was a really nice night! As usual, it wasn’t just drinks at the pub but rather an interesting conversation and the questions to answer on this night was Favourite Sport to watch, and sport you’d want to be entered into the 2012 Olympics to compete in! I said Gymnastics or Water Polo, and now we all have to hope Ray (my old ODA boss) doesn’t bloody pull some strings and actually enter us! hahaha what a laugh. Anyhow the night was really enjoyable, just with about 6 of us (not my on-site CLM Logistics team, but my ODA one) so it’s great to have my nice new Healthcare for London team, as well as keeping my old workmates and friends from the Olympics.

So yeah Mon and Tues nights I went to gym, Tuesday night I did my ‘day 2′ programme (usually on wednesday) as well as my normal Tuesday swimming to counteract the drinking for Wednesday night! Thursday night I took off, and tonight I went in and struggled a little bit, I think I have weak arms and shoulders when lifting above my head, so tomorrow I’m going in to do Cardio as that’s what else I struggle with and give in too easily on!

Well I realised a lot of things have happened in the last four weeks and I’ve been so wrapped up that I haven’t blogged about any of them; time for an update.Okay so the whole weekend away in Italy I contemplated a new job offer from Healthcare for London (NHS London) and had to weigh up something new against staying with my lovely Logistics Olympics team, and the ‘Olympic Games’.. one had little work and average pay, and the other had promise of more work and incentive of more pay… anyhow I finally decided to take the Healthcare for London job! Dave Peacop, my CLM Logistics boss was none too please, he scowled at me for a few days every time he walked past, and I had some of the girls calling me traitor! And the rest really worried about what would happen when I leave etc. It was really sweet actually to see how valued I actually was, despite the occasional lack of work! It was a big decision too, because Dave and Dion and I had been discussing new work for me to move onto, including setting up and running an interim Delivery Management System and probably moving into the Comms/Security team to deal with site visits and that sort of jazz, which would have been exciting and kept me busy, except unfortunately the pay would have stayed the same.. and seeing as I’m young and love travelling and live with no money (already) in London, the money in the end did tip the scales on my choices.So the new job happened, and then I found out about Snoopy passing away, and then I had my birthday and had to integrate myself to my new job, as well as doing my old job for a week… yup kind of went between the two! It was quite a busy time. I went out for some farewell drinks with various workmates on a Wednesday night (6 Feb I think) and then I had also interviewed (with Janine Heyns from HR) and found a replacement for my job in CLM Logistics that day, so wasn’t feeling to bad. Anyhow yeah it was quite sad knowing I was leaving the Olympics team. I was quite surprised on Monday afternoon, my final time on-site, that the team from there, as well as the girls (Cath and Holly) from Churchill Place came over and we had a speech and present-giving and hugs! Kerry looked like she was about to cry, and all the men in the team were so sweet with their sentiments of appreciation etc that I really felt quite guilty about leaving. I got some gorgeous presents - obviously present buying was left up to the 3 girls in the team! haha A lovely brown handbag (with a name; Joanna), a gorgeous red bangle, a similar bangle-material pony tail cover, a wide brown leather belt and a delicious box of champagne truffles! The card was also very cute (organgutan!) and everyone wrote really nice things inside - so definitely a group I hope to keep in touch with. I do need to organise drinks for first or second week of March, as some of my closest mates weren’t around in my last week (annual holidays). Read the rest of this entry »