One way to the UK?

Today, Sunday 6 April the Olympic Torch came on it’s journey through London. Naomi, a colleague of mine from when I used to work for 2012 and I met up at Canary Wharf (with me running late) JUST in time to see the Flame being run by….. the torch-bearer was surrounded by that many bloody policemen and assistance-runners that I barely saw the thing! I was quite disappointed! Instead of trying for a photo I captured some video of the torch running past, however you have to look really hard to see it being held by a little man in red, surrounded by the aforementioned police and assistance runners. Hmm yes, not happy with what we could see!

I guess though, it’s a little understandable after the TV footage that’s been shown all day showing police tackling Free Tibet protestors to the ground when they tried to blockage the torch’s path and also one tried to run up and physically snatch the torch from a runner – so I’d say by the time it got to Canary Wharf where we were waiting, security had indeed been beefed up! Even the rubbin bins around inside the Wharf had been removed in case of terrorism attacks etc.

Still, it’s a good thing to watch – the Olympic torch in London, as the next time it will be here is for ‘our’ very own Summer games in 2012!

Well that’s about it for now – I’m finishing watching the second half of a great show “Casualty 1907” which is a film of The London Hospital in the time of plague and medicating patients with brandy and of people dying left-right-and centre. The London is still located just up the road from where we live in East London…. hopefully things have changed a bit since then, but after working for the NHS a few months I’m not completely convinced! hahaha especially as my friend had his head operated on last week and when going back to get the dressing changed he got in trouble for not bringing back his own bandage to re-use… hmm sterilisation standards anyone?

Well it has been done – I have survived a British winter. Last Sunday morning at 0200 hours we had to wind forward the clocks one hour, so that we now have more hours of sunligh, and nicely the sun has actually been shining a bit lately too… (except for today!). It’s almost like over the winter people around the place bred or immigrated into where we live in Bromley-by-Bow… now-days when I get home from work and gym there are kids EVERYWHERE, playing games on the football (soccer) pitch near our house and kicking the ball around in the street and in the green area in front of our block of flats… I seriously wonder what the kids did and where they were kept in the winter!

So yes it’s now british summer time, however, after a nice Friday of about 17 degrees celcius where I took a lunch break just to actually experience some warmth, today London awoke to SNOW! Yep that is right, snow on the ground and still falling from the sky. So now I can almost say I’ve seen everything in terms of weather whilst walking down Oxford Street in the centre of London. It was unusual to see and feel the snow falling and then the sun out for a brief spell, and then more gentle snowflakes falling down!

Last night (Saturday), Kristy and I were supposed to have a quiet night in at her house after she’d had a few drinks at the Wheatsheaf with her fellow rugby team members… I was planning on heading to that side of town about 5pm, however fell asleep after reading some of my new book (People of The Book) and didn’t end up getting the tube until 7pm… and Kristy was still at the Wheatsheaf so I went and met her there! On arrival, she was pretty drunk! Oh lordy – so there went the quiet DVD night haha. I didn’t drink much at all (very restrained of me I know) but still stayed out until about half three in the morning, where Kristy and I along with Chris (Lilly) and Adam headed home from Sandy’s house (we all ended up back there as low-and-behold the pubs were all closing). Anyhow it was a good night! Kristy and I were out like the lights and as I said, woke up to snow this morning! We got dressed and braved the cold, actually the winds and snowflakes to get to a little breakfast place in Clapham Common and I enjoyed a very lovely Eggs Benedict with hashbrowns and grilled tomatoes, as well as bottomless cups of tea! Mmm just the right thing for a Sunday.