One way to the UK?

Well it was Friday the 13th last week, and no, nothing exciting or unusual happened, quite the opposite I would say! Ali and I caught up after work and he made me dinner, again (I know, I owe someone a few) and then played the Wii which is quite odd at first because it’s such an interactive thing you can’t just sit on the couch, but after losing a few 10-pin bowling games I then proceeded to kick ass in tennis which was great as I suck at real-life tennis! So it was lots of fun, however I was left with a sore right shoulder on Saturday! The weekend was pretty packed with activities! I didn’t even have a chance to do any washing.

Saturday… Mara and I headed off to East Ham on the railway (half tube half above ground line) out to the ‘far east’ (not as far as Nancy lived though!) to visit the Newham Show, as I had to meet up with some RSPCA East London ladies at their stall for a chat. It was good as I got to speak directly to Lorna who is one of the ‘hands on animals’ people, rather than just fund raising. The RSPCA works differently over here, in that they get a bit of Government funding, and also raise lots of money, but the animals aren’t kept in shelters like ours at home, but rather are fostered out or kept on farm-areas outside the main city area so the branch volunteers are pretty much about education and fundraising rather than hands on cleaning, feeding etc like I am used to. Because of that in my background, Lorna and the others were pretty exciting to have me coming on board. They need someone in the East End (Mile End area where I am) to do some home education and also to trap cats and take them to the vets to be desexed. The RSPCA here pays for people’s cats to be desexed. A lot of the time the cats are peoples pets, but some are apparently strays and some are quite feral that I will have to trap. I’m not sure where I would re-release a ‘neutered feral’ cat back to, but that will probably be explained when I go to their meeting next week and meet the vet nurses. I can just see it now – me sitting on the tube with a cat!!! The RSPCA also likes to foster out pregnant mother cats, so it’s a 6-8 week committement until she has the kittens and they’re old enough. Unfortunately in our current share house that’s not really possible, but is something I’d like to get into once we return from Europe and get our new place.

The Newham Show was also really interesting with the huge amount of local school involvement! It wasn’t just a pissy show like at home, but the kids, and adults here really get involved! The costumes for the ‘carnivale parade’ were huge (i will post some pics soon!) and the music bands and dancing and fashion show were top quality. AFter we’d seen everything at the Central Park (it seriously took a few hours!) we headed back to the tube station by foot… walking through, as we like to call it ‘the real east end’ where you just see… well… different things. We though we were living ‘in real london’ at Mile End, but now we stand corrected!

Following the show we ducked home and then headed back to the tube station to get into The Odeon, one of the biggest, greatest (etc etc) cinema theatres around, and the place where all the film premiers in London are held! Mara was jumping up and down to see the new Harry Potter film there, and I figured there’s no better film coming out soon that I’d want to spend £14 or almost $30 on a ticket for so we might as well book them (online) so off we went! Our seats were actually quite good and the file was excellent! Admittedly not the best film I’ve seen, or the best in the series to date, but still a great one to watch!

Sunday – Ali came and visited in the morning and then Mara and I went off to Tescos (walked there, bussed back) to do our weekly shopping. This week, prior to going we wrote down exactly what we wanted and needed for specific meals in order to budget and keep costs down! The only extras that went in the baskets were vegetables so that was good! Following us getting home, the skies darkened and then started to rain… so we ate some lunch and waited at home a little while and then we convinced Jacqui (flatmate) to come with us to the Rise Festival (big festival, against racism) and it was huge! The trip to get there took ages, and the entry was free so the day and events were worth the effort! Big DJ bus, comedy tent, african dance/drum tent, hiphop tent and the main stage, where we got to see Kelis. Okay so I don’t know many of her songs, and the one I do know “milkshake” drives me up the wall but at least it was a ‘big name’ singing! And you could get as close to the stage as you wanted, no ticketing or anything silly like that! Directly after we’d had enough of the Festival, we headed back near home to The George Tavern to see Cath, the NZ (young) lady I work with perform in her improvisation comedy show!

Lost in the East End 

Three New Zealand veteran improv comedians reunite in London for a one off improv extravaganza.   

Lost in the East End is an entirely improvised, fast paced mix of scenes, songs and scenarios helped along by audience suggestions.

It was a great performance (even though we arrived late), and they kept the audience laughing the whole time, as well as being involved, and wanting more at the end! Cath is going back to Edinburgh this year too so keep an eye out if you’re up that way.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 5:54 am 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.