One way to the UK?

Well Friday morning I headed off and had a good training session at the gym; in preparation for the 4 days of Easter!

At about 130pm Mara and I arrived at Liverpool Street station to catch the train out to Stansted… we had it planned to meet Sarah and Emma there and get the 1340 train, and meet Kate 11 minutes later at Tottenham Hale station to head to Stansted all together! We ‘just’ made it onto the train all together after Sarah and Emma arrived a little late from their connections etc… anyhow all went well and we had a good chat on the way to the station! Once we’d checked in at Stansted, our flight was almost on time, we got caught up a little in security as Kate only took hand-luggage and one of her expensive face creams was in a 200ml bottle (oops!) but luckily the nice security guy let her go through to Boots and purchase some little 100ml containers to decant it into!

We then had a look around the small range of duty free shops, tried some free Baileys and Snow Queen 5x distilled Vodka, before buying a bottle of that and a British tin with cookies inside as Jen’s thankyou present! Mara and I grabbed a coffee each and the other girls grabbed something for lunch before we walked through to the Ryan Air departure area for more waiting… our plane literally pulled up and disembarked while we were all in line waiting to get on (quick turn around, no wonder Ryan Air planes aren’t always the cleanest!). Anyhow Sarah, Emma and Kate had priority boarding (paid the extra 2 Pound) so they saved two seats for Mara and I to join them! Mind you, for once just as it worked out, Mara and I were at the front of the ‘other passengers’ boarding line so it wasn’t too bad regardless.

Jen picked us up from the airport in two lots, and as I was in the first car to her house I got a proper bed to sleep on (haha). I’m sure next time we’ll swap around for couch duties. So, Friday being Good Friday all the pubs in Ireland were closed, and the alcohol isles in the supermarkets were blockaded off; literally NO purchasing of alcohol at all! In Ireland! Jen has stocked up the house well with food and drinks to last the weekend so we were all quite happy to all just talk and talk and catch up and drink and eat bits and pieces for dinner until the early hours of the morning (well about half one we headed to bed!).

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Just a note to say thank you for all the kind words to myself, and family members on our loss of Snoopy. The other girls still aren’t eating their Saturday bones and I’m dreading going home in one sense because then it will be even more real that Snoopy isn’t around anymore. xx

Ciao, ciao. Gosh when I was in Italy I actually knew so many more words in the language, however they escape me now! I still have my talent for translating foreign languages either in writing or when listening to someone speak though which is always useful!

 Okay well I had written quite a decent entry on my birthday weekend away in Italy, however it never got ‘published’ to here and deleted itself to cyber-space which is very, very annoying. So now, to get you all up to date and to keep note of what Italy skiing is like I shall do an abridged entry.

So on Thursday 24 January I stayed back late at work and made sure everything was pretty much done and ready for Friday and then Mara and I met at home, did last minute packing and settled in to watch Transformers (great movie) until about 02:30am. We then had the alarms set for 04:00am to get the public bus to Stratford and then the National Express (A9) to Stanstead Airport to board our flight to Italy! I had to call in… well text in sick to work which I felt bad about, but hell when I asked back in December for the day off they wouldn’t let me, so after already booked out holiday tickets I was really left with no choice!

Our flight from Stanstead actually left on time with Ryanair for once, which was fantastic but probably because it was so damn early! About 90 minutes later we touched down in Bergamo, Italy. The same place we landed in for Mara’s birthday last July, although this time instead of heading south for sunshine we were heading north for the skiing slopes! After getting our bags and through customs, we grabbed the local bus and went all the way up cliff/big hill to Citta Alta, the ‘top old city’ of Bergamo. Luckily our packs were light (just ski clothes and jeans for two days) as we walked around the old town for a while, grabbed a choc/custard canoli and drooled over some other Italian foods in windows about the place. We walked a little way down the huge hill and then not finding bus ticket dispensers anywhere (and refusing to walk the entire way down), we headed back up the hill to the main bus turn around point where the machine was! It was a good potter around though, and definitely changed my views of Bergamo from last time we were there. It’s actually quite a nice place; probably wouldn’t specifically go there for a holiday but it is nice to explore. So after getting back into Bergamo town centre, we found a nice ‘music cafe’ for lunch where the food was so lovey. I think I had a bagette or something like that, cannot remember now, but it tasted damn good. AFter lunch we headed for the main bus termini and waited for the next bus out to Boario, the town where our Hotel was waiting, just at the foot of the skiing slope Mont Campione.

So after about 1hr 45 minutes and a few power naps we arrived in Boario and found Hotel Armonia. The town was nice and very quiet; it seems Summer is it’s best tourist time as everyone loves the lakes, but for winter, as we would notice further over the weekend, it’s not really a tourist place but a lot of Italians go there for their skiing breaks! This wasn’t a bad thing though, meant everyone was super friendly to us when they learnt we (only really) spoke Eng-a-lish.  We checked into the Hotel, got changed and then Roberto (roll your Rrrs) collected us for our night-hike and dinner. It was a little confusing as he didn’t know we were supposed to be going etc, etc so was a little late (but we weren’t ready anyhow) and he was verrry pleased that it was two lovely girls and not a boring couple he would be spending the night with… haha. We drove up to Mont Campione (Cam-pi-own-ee) and stopped between 1200ft and 1800ft for some gorgeous sunset views where you can see all the way back to Bergamo. Got in some piccies, and then jumped back in the heater car to 1800ft where we were issued with our ‘tennis racket’ snow shoes to begin our hike! Roberto took us here, there and everywhere on the snow to get some great views and experience Mont Campione by night… I was quite hungy and would have been okay just walking straight to the restaurant (haha) but of course the hike wasn’t bad and I loved being able to see all the stars in the sky. It’s something I definitely miss from home. London just has too many lights to see anything at nighttime (or it’s cloudy anyhow). The hike was also good to prepare us for the huge dinnner awaiting at the restaurant! We were told we had to eat EVERYTHING too otherwise we’d offent the chefs… well antipasto and starters were okay and then the main meal just kept coming so in the end we didn’t quite finish everything, but it was all lovely. Including the deer “oh my god you’re making me eat Bambi” to which Roberto was like “no no it not Bambi” all serious-like. haha. During the course of dinner as we were friendly Aussie girls Roberto ate with us, and the chefs came over and sat with us too for chats etc – they found out it was my birthday that we were there for, so we got cakes and candles and espresso and grappa thrown into the dinner! Very nice!

We only had a few ‘falls’ on the way hiking to the restaurant and after a few too many wines the prospect of hiking back to 1800ft was really quite amusing! We made it however, and while waiting for our lift back to Boario (Roberto was staying in his ‘snow top’ house overnight) we were looking around his parents ski shop (whole family works at the snow in winter) and picked up some sunglasses each at a discount price :o) Mara and I of course forgot our normal sunnies back in London as we hadn’t needed them there since lord knows when… I think mine are in my drawer somewhere, just waiting for summer. Okay so the first night was good, but we were pretty damn stuffed after being up since 0400am!!! We got home about 1230am and crashed right to sleep.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh so frustrating!!! I had written an entire page of entry and my net dropped out and I lost it all :o(

Well… mom and dad called me with the bad news that our gorgeous old granny dog Snoopy has passed away. It is losing a family member to us. We got Snoopy when I was just 10 years old, and so for the last 12 years she’s been everywhere with us and always waiting to greet us, or eat some of our food, or get a bone from the freezer or go for a walk! And then she always shared my bed too… but she was considerate, she would first ‘feel around’ with her snout, and then her front feet, to make sure she didn’t land on top of me when she jumped on the bed! Snoopy was like a polar bear in winter as no matter how cold it was outside she would still jump into the pool for a swim! I remember when we were younger she would jump into the ‘pool beanbag’ and just float around… and the other thing about Snoopy is that she was always wagging her tail! Even when I was home alone and she wanted walkies/breakfast at 6am she would make little graning noises, and then thump her tail against the side of my bed until I woke up and fed her! First Callista was her little best mate who always made sure Snoopy was okay especially if she had an epileptic fit.. but then Callista departed through cancer. And little Abbie came along to live with me at home and she became Snoopy’s shadow! Everywhere Snoopy went, Abbie would run close behind (except for walkies where Abbie always streaked ahead). But at home if Snoopy went on the mats Abbie would go there and ‘park’ almost on her, always touching. Then Snoopy would almost roll her eyes, get up and walk to the carpet… and Abbie would jump up and go sit next to/on here there too and it went on and on! Abbie would also hide behind Snoopy if things got scary, so hopefully she’ll be okay now just with Kassie. Snoopy led a wonderful life, and I think got spoilt rotten by us, and pretty much everything she wanted she got. She was the perfect family pet and always like a mischevious pup… from the first day we got her home and I was on my own with her and she tipped out the ice-cream bucket of water.