One way to the UK?

Well, January has gone by so fast already! Mara and I just returned from Italy, skiing for the weekend, and I realised how behind I am in keeping things online up to date! So, summary of the month that has passed by so far…

About 5 January I went up to Leicester to visit Megan (Crowe, from Alice Springs) who was visiting her UK rellies along with her mom and dad. They picked me up from the train station, and it was such a lovely day! We walked around Leicester a bit, and saw the museum, city shops, had nice lunch at ‘spudulike’ (potato shop!) and met up for coffee with two of her friends who are from Leicester, but she met at Uni in Adelaide… small world! We were going to the cinema in the evening, and went to see the Jain Centre (indian temple thing) however it was closed when we got there… well actually it was open, and we were standing outside wondering if it was the right place, and a guy walked up and locked the door! Even though the sign on the door clearly stated ‘close: 1900’ and it was only 1600! Cheeky Bugger!!! So, we headed off walking towards the cinema, and it didn’t look far on the map, and it would have been all good except it started to absolutely bucket down raining!!! We got to the cinema nicely soaked, checked the movie times and then went to the pub next door for a drink prior to watching P.S. I Love You. The movie was pretty good, and we didn’t end up too sick after getting stuck in the rain as we dried off using the pub’s toilet hand-dryers! haha resourceful.

The rest of the weekend in Leicester was nice. We stayed overnight at Megan’s gran’s bungalow and went out walking around the village (outside of Leicester) Sunday morning, before we all headed over to Megan’s Aunts house for a really lovely sunday dinner. Following that, Megan and I and her parents went to the National Space Center! What a great place with so many exhibitions! We didn’t even get time to see them all, but the information was excellent – could have spent longer there doing the interactive things haha! So then the weekend was at an end and I was dropped back at the train station, back to London. It was just so nice to catch up with someone from home, and someone i’ve now known for 15 years!

So, during the weeks it’s been work as usual, and then the next weekend in January, so the 12th, Uncle Andy came over to London (from Jersey) and we went off to see a Chelsea v Tottenham game at Stamford Bridge! What a great atmosphere! We were sitting pretty much ‘up with the gods’ but could still see everything and feel totally part of the atmosphere. Chelsea won, thank god! Kristy came along with us too which was great as she’s been in UK over two years and never seen a real football match! Mara and I were laughing how TAME everyone was especially in comparrison to the game we saw in Croatia last year! On Sunday we went to Camden Markets with Uncle Andy to show him the punks etc, and the market wares – some very interesting things floating around there!

Oh did I mention Mara and I have been on DETOX? From 6 Jan until 25 Jan – so lasted almost 20 days! We were supposed to stick to it for 28 days, but hey it’s my birthday tomorrow so we gave up on that idea!

The detox consisted of dropping dairy, wheat, meat, chocolate, caffeine and alcohol!!! Yep, we were left with nuts, legumes, fruit and vegetables. All very good for you of course! Duringt he first week my head was a little fuzzy, but after downing stacks of water and herbal detox teas it soon balanced out and I had more energy than before! So it was great thing to do… next year however I am waiting until February haha, as there are too many good things left over from Christmas in January! Didn’t loose any weight on the detox… but uh well! I got myself a new gym membership and have been 2-3 time each week so far which is great! I even walk there and back to get extra exercise and to save on bus fares.

Well… the other thing that happened in January was me applying for a new job. Yep that’s right.. considering leaving the Olympics? I found what I think could be ‘the perfect’ job for me, to keep me busy, in a new group called Healthcare for London, which sits under the NHS which is the Strategic Health Authority for London… yes I did my research… applied for the job, got an interview, and got the job!!!!

Now I’ve thought about it all weekend… just need to tell my boss here at the Olympics and go from there. I had my Olympic Appraisal last week on Thursday (and then I was ‘off sick’ on Friday) and so that’s why I haven’t told anyone here yet about me leaving! The Olympics wants to develop my job more, as Dave said, you are so much more capable and I applaud you for actually speaking out and saying you are bored and want to do more etc, etc… but in the short term, I love being in Health, it feels like ‘home ground’ to me, and it pays £4000/yr better which is great for my travelling plans in 2008.

So that’s up to date to now.. except for the weekend just passed but that deserves it’s own entry!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 1:10 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.