ANZAC Day - Hyde Park, London

Some pictures from the memorial service. I got there a bit late to get to the front, but we could hear the whole service so that was fine. It went for about an hour and there would have been around a couple of thousand people there. There was actually quite a lot of younger people there and not very many of them who are religious and its quite a religious service. I say this because anytime it was called upon everyone to say "amen" or say a prayer - no one said a peep. I did sing the anthem though, and so did lots of other people!!

Count down to Turkey..

Well tomorrow it is ANZAC day and I will be getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to go to the dawn memorial service at Hyde Park. Mark is lazy and won't be coming, thank goodness Dallas is crazier than me (he plans to be there before 4:30am) and will be there too. I promised myself last year that I would be a good little Australian and go to said dawn services (yawn!!! - no seriously am tired).

And although I am not going to Turkey for ANZAC day, I will be leaving for Bodrum, Turkey with Anne on Saturday. I am slightly nervous, as have not travelled without Mark before, I know Anne is a seasoned traveller so should be fine in that respect. BUT a whole week, on a proper holiday without Mark. Hummm will be strange.

Anyways am going to bed now I promised I would try to relax at bit more before bed as my brain is usually going 30,000 miles an hour and I cannot sleep.

My Procrastination Pays off....

I have found over the last couple of weeks my procrastination, bad habit if you have it, has actually helped me. It all started about 4-5 months ago when I was desperate to do Pilates again. Charlotte, my friend whom I met at the JV, was desperate to find one too. So we both looked and found a place with one group near her and one near me, but at the other end of West End lane, so effort to get there would be required – I’ve have gotten lazy in my old age. Well Charlotte was good and went along. I however, had holidays and various things on, you know it’s a hard life that I lead, and so put it off.

Eventually about a month ago, I rang them and it turns out they no longer exist. Blast it! I was thinking, that I would have to research all over again to find another place – as I wanted Body Control Pilates as that is the proper one. Though, this turned out to be a bonus, as 2 days later I popped into my now new beauticians and found a leaflet for a Body Control Pilates girl, and she is literally on my doorstep. It takes me a maximum of 20 seconds to get there (30 maybe if I dawdle or stop to say hi to the Lebanese blokes at David’s Deli).

Then to top that off a Pilates and Yoga studio opened up on Burford Road where I work, just last week actually. Now if you could see where I work and Burford road, you’d see that it was bizarre that this place should turn up at all. The street is a dead end street, basically a car park, with some new glassy flats, a café, a sheet metal place, an Asian wedding henna tattoo place, our depot office and a tiny office for the Olympic Planning committee. I actually found his flyer in Starbucks – ugh, how could you I hear you saying! Yes, sorry my latest fix is their soy caramel macchiato, but as with all food habits of mine I get bored and move on. So it’s just a phase, but this time happened to be a phase at the right time.

So basically the moral of the story is that my procrastination in joining a Pilates group saw me find one outside my flat and the other right outside my work, with lunchtime sessions. I just had to share my joy at having great luck with this….

Hampstead Heath & Regents Park

Since I wasted much of a lovely Saturday (you've seen the Friday pictures - though I did make it out for a Pilates lesson) I vowed to make the most of Sunday.

Firstly in the morning, I dragged Laura out of bed and hiked across to Hampstead to meet her before we headed up to Hampstead Heath, to take a walk around the park. I haven't been there in Summer before and it is just lovely - so green and it feels like you are in the middle of the countryside, except up the top where you can see the city from Kenwood House.

Then that afternoon I dragged Mark out of the house, and we had lunch at The Prince Regent on Marylebone High street. We always check out our pubs first on a website called Fancy a Pint and this one turned out to be a good choice, as it was a non-chain pub, it had fabulous decor (think dark wood, central bar, chandeliers, stained glass opened windows), Belgian fruit beers - on tap and our Sunday roast was lovely sitting outside.

We then got a paper and went for a walk over to Regents Park, where we found a spot to lie down and read. Find a spot firstly was a tricky aspect as although its a huge park, but everyone in London was there, it seemed on Sunday. The sports grounds were packed out, badminton nets were in abundance, the hairy backed and variously pasty pale backs of hundreds of men were on display, the playgrounds were overflowing and the queues for icecream - wow! Apparently, forget Spain, forget Southern Europe, the place for sunshine this past weekend was London with the hottest April temps anywhere. I am so not complaining!!!
Near the lake at the bottom of Kenwood House
View down towards the lake

Another Friday

Well I wasn't going to bother going out too long last friday, but since Meredith was heading back to Oz (that night mind you, and she hadn't finished packing) to get married we thought it was a worthy cause.

After that we, Julie, Dallas and I ended up with Marks lot at Firefly near St Pauls, and on Marks insistence it is right opposite the Old Bailey, and stayed out too too late. Its ok we got a chatty cabby (am astounded we found a cab) on the ride home and we got talking about the Grand National.

We we also stayed out because, well I am a glutton for punishment. So here you get too see another night out and enjoy, well our, both of our poor efforts at trying to be 30 year olds acting as if we are 19 again. You know what...you only live once, enjoy!
Julie and Dallas (I blame Julie for the extra bottle of wine)
Laura and Dawn
Mark and Dawn
Laura and Dallas
Mark pulling a face as usual
Lisa and Matt (who has lots more pictures of Mark pulling faces)
JoJo and Simon

PS I finally got my digital camera back from the shop so pictures will flow more freely again!

Travel Plans - 2007

This year....so far our plans are -

Bodrum, Turkey - 1 week, Lisa and Anne to relax on the beach and visit to Pamukkale as well

Bodrum Castle









The Hague, Netherlands - 3 day weekend, to see the Tulips in full bloom and to go to the Vermeer Art Gallery in Delft.

Brussels, Belgium - 4 days, but to go to Rock Werchter 2007

Barcelona, Alicante & Costa Blanca, Spain - 9 days - with Brad and Tuti, for a bit of culture and sunshine
Javea

Bordeaux to Montpellier, France - 1 week, exploring the regions in between watching the Rugby World Cup Matches (Also will be going to Wales and Marseilles for the World Cup to, on the weekends either side of this.

A few of my favourite things......

I know I promised to send a few of you some information on shopping over here, so I have put a few sites for you all to check out - that are my favourites.

We just got a new Primark on Oxford Street last week and yes, I was one of the sad sorry souls who lined up to get in (but not the first day as I had no idea it had opened). I went the following weekend and wasn't expecting that I would still have to queue to get in. Primark is a really cheap and nasty shop, but not as bad as ASDA (Walmart in US) as at least they have an ethical code for their suppliers and don't use slave labour. They are really cheap though as I got a pair of jeans for 6 pounds. However, to their credit they do have a knack of having the latest fashions and are great for the normal boring stuff too.

As for my shopping addiction I have taken to H&M like a duck to water and I never leave Top Shop without buying something. I have decided I now like Selfridges, but have to force myself not to go there! They have all the most amazing handbags. As for Bond Street and Sloane Square - Bottega Veneta, Chloe, Stella, Diane von Furstenberg - so I won't go near them.

I have become the sad person who has clothes in the closet, a very squishy closet I might add, that have the tags still on them. Not because there is anything wrong with them, I just haven't had a chance to wear them yet or they are lost - again squishy closet issue.

I felt bad about spending money on potentially crappy clothing, so I ducked into Ted Baker and treated myself to a new dress, its gorgeous, I might even wear it to the races - Royal Ascot here I come.

My shoe addiction is still going strong, though since no-one at work - its a male dominated industry - notices my shoes much I have taken to wearing only 3 favourites there. I actually now have a pantyhose - tights, the Brits call them all tights - addiction. I have them in purple, blue, pink, grey, yellow, fishnet, floral fishnet, and about 10 others with various different patterns. Though I am hoping that since the warmer weather is creeping in that I won't have to wear them much more. Today I even wore flat sandals with bare legs.....amazing and it was only 19 degrees!

With that I am out of here, to savour my other guilty pleasure - glossy magazines. Stay tuned!

My Book List

This is a list of all the books; I am reading, have read and still have to read. There are about 42 books that I have read in the past 14 months, and that is about 3 per month. Not bad, but I need to improve that, though that doesn't count the couple of business books I have read either.

Reading -

Perfume - Patrick Suskind (reading)

Read -

The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (excellent read)

The Poisonwood Bible - Barabara Kingsolver (set in the Congo, worth reading)

The Girl in Times Square - Paullina Simons (sad, but good)

Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisburger (better than the movie)

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Marina Lewycka (v. funny)

The Story of Lucy Gault - William Trevor (a sad girl)

The Catalpa Tree - Denyse Devlin (why I wanted to visit Letterfrack in Ireland)

The Reading Group - Elizabeth Noble (good)

Olivia Jooles - Helen Fielding (funny)

Sensing Others - Frank Tallis (good and set in Kilburn)

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (I really liked this, not all will agree)

His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman (brilliant - they are making a movie now with Nicole Kidman)

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood (short n'sweet)

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (excellent read)

Tough Choices - Carly Fiorina (former HP boss, inspiring)

An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore (makes you love our planet more)

Tourism - Nirpal Singh Dhaliwai (good one)

For one more day - Mitch Albom (uplifting, also the author of The Five People you meet in heaven, which is also really good)

Thin - Grace Bowman (true story of an anorexic, very good)

On Beauty - Zadie Smith (good but not memorable)

A Long Long Way - Sebastian Barry (a long long war book, but interesting)

There's a bear in there - Merridy Eastman (just funny, true girly chick stuff)

The Bad Mother's Handbook - Kate Long (funny)

Hannibal Rising - Thomas Harris (his first book was the best on)

Don't ever tell - Kathey O'Beirne (sad)

Notes on a Scandal - Zoe Heller (disapointing)

The Nightwatch - Sarah Waters (didn't like the end much)

Things we know were true - Nicci Gerrard

The Adoption - Dave Hill

Annie May's Black Book - Debby Holt

Notes from a Small Island - Brill Bryson

Be careful what you wish for - Alexandra Potter

That certain age - Elizabeth Buchan

The Girl most likely - Rebecca Sparrow

Others I have read, or maybe tried to-
Panic - Jeff Abbott
Lazy Bones - Mark Billinghurst
The Broker - John Grisham
Ulysses - James Joyce (inspired by the Ireland trip, alas its a tome and I may never start it)
The Sea - John Banville (snore)
Narrow Dog to Carcassonne - Terry Darlington (boring could not get started)

Owned but not read just yet -
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
Peoples act of Love - James Meek
Left Bank - Kate Muir
Cats Eye - Margaret Atwood

Primrose Hill

Mark and I were a bit bored today so we wandered down in the sunshine to Primrose Hill for lunch at a nearby pub called The Princess of Wales. The pub was a good old fashioned authentic non-chain pub, with an Irish feel, that had big windows to let all the light in. Most important in the winter. Though we were lucky enough to get to sit out the front in the sunshine, to enjoy our fish and chips and Pimms, which is the best place to be at any pub on a warm sunny day.

We then walked for a bit and back around to go up Primrose Hill. Mark had not been up there to see the view before so I made him not look until we got right to the top. Lots of people were out on the hill, lazying about, playing ball games, walking dogs and enjoying themselves. It was a brilliant clear day so you could see right across London and beyond. I had no idea there was so much construction and I counted at least 51 construction cranes, probably about 50 more than back in Adelaide. Especially now the new Santos building is done!

Being its Easter there was a big group of people all dressed up and involved in an Easter egg decorating competition, it was quite funny and I took a few pictures of that too.

Since it was so nice we kept walking all the way back around to Adelaide road, behind Primrose Hill and back up Primrose Hill road to Belsize Park. Haverstock Hill road, up that way and running right up to Hampstead, is like our own West End lane, with lots of restaurants and pubs. I say that because today Mark said to me, whilst walking up a bustling West End Lane, "Why would you want to move away from this?". Well precisely because there are other places just as cool to go and live in, that won't cost us any, or at least much more. We won't move till the summer though, even though that will be here soon enough.

Norwich

Its been a long winter in London and even longer since we treked out of London for some sight seeing in this great country Britain. We just wanted to get away for a change of scenery.

A quaint Norwich street in the old part of the town

We took a train out of London Liverpool street to head east up to Norwich, which is near the eastern coastline. We have left London via all the 10 main stations, except for two, being Charing Cross and Euston.

It was a sort of sunny day, but the both of us soon had our heads in magazines. Though once we got a bit further out and nearly to Norwich, there was countryside and I thought we saw hares, but apparently they were small deer in tall grass. So the misunderstanding, you know they both have long ears and bounce around!!

Norwich street markets

When we pulled into Norwich, it was a pretty station (they have won a few prettiest town competitions) and a far cry from some of the previous stations with the loitering and very bored looking teenagers.

Mark was in charge of directions to the hotel, so consequently we got lost along the way because he did it from memory, it didn't help that the street we were after changed names before we got near it. Oh and he nearly got hit by a bus!

This is because in Norwich they have pedestrian crossings that have the walk sign/little man next to you, before you cross the road (so you cannot pay attention to the road) instead across the road. Though even though we had a green light, a bus went through in a bus lane that seemed to ignore that it was green for pedestrians. A bit scary.

The Earth from the Air display

Our hotel was nice, very central too (but still no face cloths). We were firstly starving and after wandering through all the little windy streets, we found a decent pub for a quick lunch. We then headed back up to the main market square area to a place called the forum, near one of the millions of churches (oh I so lost count - it was seriously rediculous).
There they had an open air exhibition for The Earth from the Air by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. This is 120 giant pictures from the A3 book I have at home with all the amazing pictures from different parts of the world (Av you've got this book too). There was even a giant world map which you could walk all over, you had to take off your shoes though.

After visiting the tourist info shop we worked out the "must do" sites in Norwich and decided first stop would have to be the Cathedral, as it would be closed the next day. It was a lovely cathedral that is about 900 years old, not as nice as Windsor, but am sure it never meant to service the Queen either. I even got to take photos inside, which turned out for a change.
The Choir pews, first dates back to the Benedictine Monks

The Peace Globe with the 15th century stained glass above
The Spire from the Cloisters

We then decided to do a bit of shopping and wandered through all 5 or 6 different shopping areas in central Norwich, quite good really as all the good shops were there (hard to say that for central London. Mark even picked up a pair of Billabong jeans for a bargain £16 (AUD$40) - you couldn't get them that cheap in Aus even. Mostly we just wandered around, then for dinner we found a fabulous authentic Greek restaurant for dinner (lovely!).
Historic cow tower along the river

Sunday was clear and bright, but damn near freezing and even colder with the blustering winds. We weren't dressed for it so it made it even more unpleasant than it should have been. We first had a big fry up breakfast at the hotel, have to make the most of breakfast when its included.

Norwich is on a river, which borders the North East of the town, and because the walk is quite pretty we went for a bit of a wander along it on our way up to Dragon Hall.
A house along the river

It sounds a bit scary, well its not, as it basically a building that was back in 1430 a medieval trading hall by a wealthy merchant.
Dragon hall interior, with a dragond depicted in the roof beams

Once we left there, it was raining outside, well we thought it was - it was actually snowing! I did say it was cold (just the sort that disapears instantly though). Burrrr, we practically ran back to the shopping mall for a hot chocolate to warm up again. Then we were off to Norwich Castle, right above the shopping mall (v. convenient). It was build by the Normans, that is why its a big square castle, back about 900 years ago as a Royal Palace. Though it spent 500 years, the most recent end of that, as a prison!
Inside Norwich Castle

Hummm, what to do next. It was a Sunday, so off to a pub - The Bell - for a Sunday roast, quite a good one too. Unfortunately after the lunch we had to move to a different pub to watch, well for Mark to watch, the soccer. I had a magazine to read so I was happy with that.

It would have been better if we'd had a car, as we were literally a stones throw from a few other interesting places including the coastline, but we now know a bit of extra research will help to be sure what we want to visit.

All good things must come to an end, the weekend that is, so by 8pm we were back at the train station to head back to London.
A Norwich cobbled stone street

Laura does blog...

My best friend, dear dear Laura, back home in Aussie land has joined the blog brigade, hurrah. I hope its catchy. Amy, what about you, Avy, Jen, mum, anyone!! Its great now I hope to be kept much more up todate on the goings on back home. Here is a picture of us together to show how long we've known each other, and the annoying thing is I don't have any current photos of us together over here in London!!

Laura, Amy and Lisa (from way back in around '96)

The Monopoly Pub Crawl

Yesterday was our Monopoly pub crawl, where our goal was to travel around London to visit pubs, and have a drink, on all the streets (26 in all) on the original Monopoly board in one day. A challenge indeed and had the potential to get very very messy.

We started by meeting up out front of the Elephant and Castle tube station at 10am, after hopefully all having stomach lining sustaining breakfasts (well we did). From there 7 of us - Mark, me, Ahmad, Anais, Laura, Victoria, and Dallas - proceeded to head to the only pub South of the river; The George on Old Kent Road. We decided that adding fun to the day would be to try and keep ahead of another group that we saw also doing the same crawl.

It certainly was weird being in a pub at 11 o'clock in the morning, as pubs that hour always have a weird smell. It was like a stale smokey damp smell, mixed with the smell of vacuum cleaner dust, and that coupled with the medicinal tasting vodka with fluorescent green lime juice, already had me feeling slightly nauseous. Fortunately it was a bright sunny day, so we didn't have to worry about being stuck inside the pubs too much.

Nevertheless, there was no time to dwell, we only had 10 minutes there before we were back on the bus to head back across the river, over Tower Bridge to our next stop The Fen in Fenchurch Street station, which is quite tucked away. A bit of excitement here, where we saw a taxi that had just run into the revolving doors of an office building, which would have been much more messier had it been a weekday. We also picked up bonus points here as we picked up our first, and only, random person - Chris - an American, from Cleveland Ohio, who was attempting to do the crawl on his own.

From here we wandered around to The Aldgate Exchange on Whitechapel, then to Hamilton Hall in Liverpool street station (our first Wetherspoons pub, so our first round of apple sour shots). We then grabbed a bus on up to Angel Islington to the Agricultural pub - just off Chapel street. On the way up we saw the filming of, we think possibly, our favourite show Skins and we also nearly picked up another random person. We stayed there a bit longer than the other pubs, so the guys could watch Arsenal play, but time was getting the better of us so it was time to get moving.

We were meant to head down Pentonville road, but Ahmad - who lives up that way - lead us on a bit of a tour of the Islington area (code for he got us slightly lost), before we wound our way back there. I dragged us into a pub, that turned out to be a strip club, ooops. We still had a drink and a desperate loo stop, before moving on to the Duke of York in Kings cross station. By then it was 2pm, and we were all still feeling pretty good with 7 drinks down, though, we were still a long way from the end.

Continuing up, we went to the Rocket on Euston road, before taking the tube up and across town to Baker street, then walking to Marylebone station; where we had a drink and a game of pool in the Victoria and Albert. Andrew met up with us here and it was also here that we realised we were still doing well and were ahead of about 4 of the 5 other Monopoly pub crawl groups (yes, lots of people do this and it was now much more of a challenge to keep ahead).

Next stop was to the posh end of town where down near Green Park, we went to the Rose and Crown on Old Park Lane (also the home of Nobu, the posh Asian restaurant favoured by many celebs who come to London), before wandering the quaint quiet streets to The Grapes on Mayfair. Moving right along we continued back to Piccadilly, across past the Ritz and down to The Blue posts, again meeting up with a couple of other groups. The next and nicest pub was The Golden Lion, just off Pall Mall. It's usually apparently closed, but lucky for us it was open. Next stop, we were back into the hustle and bustle that is Trafalgar, down to Whitehall for the pub called The Lord Moon of the Mall - probably the one with the weirdest name for sure.

On to Northumberland Avenue, was The Sherlock Holmes, a very busy pub and super popular with the tourists - given its name and location. By now we were all getting hungry and pub number 16 was up along on Fleet street. So there was a mad dash for the McDonalds next to Charing Cross station. It was there that we were joined by Mari and Barns, who came with us when we visited London's oldest pub (built originally in 1606 - rebuilt in 1667) the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

It was very quaint off a tiny lane way complete with lots of small dark wood beamed rooms, and very low ceilings. I heard a few ouches....and lots of head holding from mishaps with low doorways. We only stayed there briefly as we were still behind schedule and 17 drinks, were making us a bit oversensitive - one of our group and another patron, clashed quite badly too. (Fortunately that was the only incident of the day)

So we were off and continued on to The Wellington on The Strand, it must have been getting on past 7.30pm as it had started to get dark. I had moved onto drinking only water, and could feel a hangover kicking in (though better then than the next day!). No matter, we had all made a commitment and were taking this to the very end.

So next stop was Bow Street for the Marquess of Anglesey, followed closely by The Chandos, just off Trafalgar square and next to the London Coliseum (I had been there before too). By now London was bustling with busy Saturday evening trade and this was not made any better by our next pub having a queue and being smack bang in the middle of Leicester Square. No matter we just went to a different pub, so the busy The Moon under Water was replaced by the All Bar One.

The Comedy was the next bar, where melon shooters were on the cards, which is on Coventry Street. We headed on to Regent street for The Captains cabin, pub number 22, where we caught up with another group. At this point our group being at 9 people, was at maximum and getting much more tired (Chris's friend, Hannah, had come along too by that point). I wouldn't recommend a group bigger than 10-12, as I am sure we nearly lost a few people along the way.

Still we trooped on........where we headed to The Red Lion just off Vine street. At this point things are getting hazier, and I do remember napping briefly against a wall!! Don't forget we walked to most of these places, so despite risking liver damage, we were at least doing exercise and tiring ourselves out in the meanwhile.

The next pub, number 24, had us wind our way up through Carnaby street, to the O'Neils, just up from Liberty on Malborough Street. Amost there, only 2 more to go! Another walk around behind Hanover square had us at a pub off Bond street called The Duke of York, which was tiny and had a fancy wrought iron spiral staircase right in the middle. Mary joined us by this time, so we were now 10. Though Amhad and Anais, did a runner at this point...

Woo hoo, only one more, which at Laura's request - don't ask, it was a goth pub - we headed to the pub off Oxford Circus called Ben Crouch's tavern. After being told drinks were no longer being served, it was around 11 or 11:30pm by then, so not entirely suprising, Mary managed to get some though by joining onto someone elses order. It was, however, time to go for me.

It had been a super long day and I was looking forward to taking to my bed and sleeping off any hangover that I may have got (no hangover, but I did sleep in for ages). The others kept going, talk about Energiser bunnies; with Chris, Hannah, Mary, Laura and a couple more of her friends going into Soho for Chinese. Dallas, Mark and I, however all let the day end there. And you know, we were still home before midnight! Piccies to come (our digital is in the shop).