London one-way!

The weekend was great, we didn’t stop for much of it!

Saturday

We went to Newham Festival, which is further (deeper) into the East End of London. We had to get off at East Ham station and catch the bus to Central Park. It was a pretty big event with market stalls, sports activities for kids, a big tent with beer on one side and tea on the other, a fashion catwalk in a big tent showcasing local designers, a stage for local comedians, and another for local bands – I filmed one lot of school kids doing Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’. Then there were all the food tents and the carnival rides, as well as heaps of information about local services, which unfortunately wasn’t useful for us.

The reason we went was because there was an RSPCA stall there and Lija will be doing some volunteering with them. In London it’s mostly based on cats and education then what Lija’s used to back in Alice Springs, but they were loving her experience and knowledge.

They also had a street parade, and because it’s known as ‘the mayor’s festival’, he was out in suit and mayoral chain around the neck. He was really into it, having a dance with the kids – knew how to play it up for the film cameras and photographers who were there!

But the costumes were great, you could see the kids had put a lot of effort into them, and parents were there supporting them in the parade too. Take a look at the pics on flickr – the link’s on the top of the homepage.

We were there for a while, had a late lunch – I got chicken tikka, only it’s not like the stuff you get at home. It was hot! My tongue nearly dropped off because it was burning so much – and I swear my lips were still sizzling (keep it clean people) – from the spicy sauce! But damn it was good!

After East Ham we went into the city and saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Leicester Square. This is the theatre central part of town – movie and stage – and the Odeon is where we went to see the film. It is one of the largest movie theatres, seating 1679 people – and the show was sold out all weekend. It was after all, opening weekend.

I’m not going to tell you my thoughts on it, because fankly, I don’t want to get into trouble for revealing anything I shouldn’t before you’ve seen it. So if you’re keen to hear my take on the movie, let me know via email and I’d love to chalk it out with you!

Sunday

After we did the weekly shop at Tescos today, we dragged Jackie out of the house to the Rise Festival at Finsbury Park – next stop up from Arsenal.

It was huge! We only spent a couple of hours there, but after the rain had subsided at home, and we’d taken brolleys and jackets (well I didn’t 🙂 but I had my dorky poncho from Big Bus tour) and it was quite fine, although muddy.

So need to buy a pair of funky gumboots – they’re all the rage at the moment! You can get away with wearing something nice on top and jeans with gumbies!

After we had a look around we sat down on my dorky poncho and just enjoyed some of the music and the bits of blue sky and sun. Shock horror I almost needed sunscreen for five minutes!

We saw Kalis perform, she’s the one who sings the Milkshake song! She was really good too. She was one of the headlining acts and as soon as she started we had to stand up to watch cos people just flooded in from everywhere!

After that we went back down to Whitechapel where one of Lija’s work colleagues, who is a comedian in her spare time, was performing with two mates in Lost in the East End. Three kiwis doing improv stand-up. It was great, hilarious!

It was a dingy little pub, but they made great use of what they had, making it interactive with the audience, etc. Ali came too, and we all walked home after that and we did leftovers for tea.

It was quite nice actually – pumpkin, sweet potato, eggplant (which they always call aubergine here), cherry tomatoes, basil, tomato relish and pasta.

Another great weekend!

Although next week’s will be better for sure – MILAN!

Haha this is me not realising it was recording while I was trying to clean my lens!!!

 

This one’s more for the music than the vision! hehe

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.