Where in the world am i?

Well, its cold, its in Eastern Europe, its Xmas time, its the Romantic city of the East - where am I, in Prague....stay tuned for more...

Prague....Christmas Day forecast....

.....is for SNOW! Yippee

MOJ Christmas Lunch

At my work, which is the very large Ministry of Justice (where I work for the HMCS (Her Majestys Court Service) Change Management Access to Justice Finance Team....whew, what a mouthful, we have a very small team of just 8 people.

Four of us are Australian (one each from Canberra, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide)...hmmmm, do I detect a trend...hummm, consider my previous jobs...consider if all the Aussies, Saffa's and Kiwi's left the UK tomorrow, there would be a lot of businesses going well belly up! There would be no one left the run the show!

Anyways...so our small team of country running peoples, had a Xmas Lunch at Zizzi's (I had pizza) and exhanged a few goodies for a Kris Kringle. It was short lived and back to work we had to go after a timed, the restaurant had us all scheduled in for 1 hour and a 1/2 only, dining slot.

My Pizza....yummy!

Amanda and Amy

Matt, my Boss (note the Essenden Supporters jumper)

Rachael (formerly was Pam who has now gone back to Melbourne), Syed, Brien & Lucy

La Cage Aux Folle - The BirdCage

You may remember this one from the hilarious film that stared Robin Williams, it - La Cage Aux Folle - was a very successful French play and movie before they made the English movie version - The Bird Cage.
I was long overdue a catch up with my friend Julie and rather than just have a dinner we caught a show too. This one I had been eyeing off to see for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity.

The show itself is about a gay couple who own a cabaret nightclub in the South of France, in Nice, where Georges is the ever suffering "man" and MD of the show and Albin is the "girl" slash drag queen/transvestite/companion/lover, who is the long time, now aging star of the show "Zsa Zsa".

It starts to get silly when Georges son turns up announcing that he is to marry Anne, whose mother and father they are to meet. However, Anne's father, a prominent politician and staunch supporter of a morality and family party, who well don't see "gays" fondly.

Albin is supposed to disappear for a night and Jean-Michele's real mother is supposed to visit and play happy families with Georges...only catch is she doesn't actually show up.

So Albin, miffed at having been dismissed as "not Jean-Michele's real mother", decides to steal the show and play mummy rather than Uncle. This has hilarious results and ends up with Anne's mother and father being smuggled out of the cabaret in Nice, by having to play transvestite dancers in the show...Hilarious.

Both Julie and I loved it and are considering seeing it again, next time with Graham Norton, who is a very popular and funny English television comedian!

Quote me...

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
Dr. Seuss

Sophies Steakhouse - Fulham

I finally managed go go out to dinner at Sophie's Steakhouse in Fulham with Sophie and Maddy (3rd time lucky) and it was great food.

Check out my massive 27oz steak, thought I could tough through it, and I did almost. Was nearly gonna have the wussy 8oz when the waiter advised that Kate Hudson had it the week before and managed and I quote "she's tiny". Think he might have been suggesting that I am not tiny...humhp!

Well here tis'

MY STEAK

Ps compare to Sophies on the place next to mine....see BIG!

What is the Deal....with Deal

My friend Nicki and I had a bit of a girly weekend together, so after a girly night in with pasta, crumble and custard and the DVD of Sex and the City (which I have now seen 3 times, cause its just that good!) we headed off to Dover Castle.

Me & Nicki

Well we got there and it was closed due to the weather, it was rainy and windy, but what else is new. So we thought to try Deal Castle, rang the tourist board and the ever so helpful lady on the other end told, us pretty much everything was closed due to the hideous weather.

Nicki and I decided that Kent was officially closed due to bad weather, the whole of it and found a nice little cosy cafe called the Black Douglas opposite the Deal pier and had a long lunch instead. Lovely, with lots of fresh local produce and a very hot pot of tea...mmm.

Icky weather outside the cafe.....

Cake....
The quaint interior....

Well it was good.....so we didn't leave you any!

Anne's Last English Hoorah!!

Anne has returned to Australia for good, it seems, and whilst she is very excited about it, I am sad to see my only Australian relative in England leave to go home.

Celebration Cosmopolitans with the girls

All gone....

We did however celebrate her leaving, though I am sure this was just one of many lunches, dinners and drinks that she had with her friends before finally boarding the plane via Singapore to wee lovely Adelaide.

Brighton Xmas lights..

Then after that evening Anne, Ruth and I packed up the last of Annes remaining chatels to various homes (mine, Ruths and Alisons). While 8 boxes and suitcases were shipped back to Australia, Anne still had a whooping 42kg of her belongings to take back to Australia. This she acheived with no excess baggage to pay (nice person at Heathrow) for the 22kg she was over the limit.

While organising I took a few photos of the beach at Worthing for Anne so she can remember the beach beach she has lived near for the past 12 months.

Worthing Beach, view to the pier

Worthing Beach street lamp

New York!

View of Lower Manhatten from the Empire State Building
My night shot of the Empire State Building from the "Top of the Rock" (Rockafeller Centre)
The one and only Cosmopolitan of the trip
An idential replica of the face of the Statue of Liberty - known fondly as Liberty
A New York Firetruck in Times Square (we saw a real fire too)
The Rockafeller centre by day
Lombardi's Pizza, finest in New York on Spring St, Little Italy
View of the Chrysler Building from the Empire State Building
Miss Liberty from the Ferry
Me at the Bull in Bowling Green, near Wall Street
Sophie and I in Time Square, near the M&M shop, all 3 floors of it!
A Typical wintery New York Streetscape
Inside the Gugenheim Museum from the top down!
Me in Central Park, with the Boathouse behind me
Sophie and I with our New York Hot dogs....yum!

My Birthday Day

Today I celebrated my birthday with a few friends at a local gastro pub in Battersea where I live called the Westbridge, which does the most yummiest roast. I have since become quite addicted to them.

It was a lovely day, and I feel very spoilt, here are a couple of pics.