WorkDirections UK - The Office

Finally, I have gotten around to taking some photos of where I work at WorkDirections at Tower Bridge. Its quite a good spot, but there is no shopping and no close decent places for lunch - but when you do want to shop and eat, the short walk to the Tower of London, the Minories or up to Leadenhall Markets is probably good excercise anyway.

Tower Bridge as seen from right outside of Royal Mint Court
The Royal Mint Court - Courtyard
WorkDirections Reception
My Desk on our "pod", its the one on the right
General view of the office and it pods
View from the office kitchen
Tower of London from the office kitchen
Sunseting behind the Tower of London from the office kitchen
Sunseting behind the Tower of London from the office kitchen, with the jet streams

Living in the UK

As a new resident over here, with my beautiful sticker in my passport that says I have Indefinite Leave to remain ... woo hooo....I was just randomly thinking about the differences in my life over here. (just because I can stay forever doesn't mean I will though...that is for sure).

So I thought to try and list what I could think of. So these are things that have changed with living in the UK ! There is more, but I have been working on this for a while and my brain is beginning to go numb. You could easily use this as a kind of Adelaide to London dictionary maybe.

Marks & Spencers = Coles (or Waitrose...my favourite)

House of Fraser = Myer

Selfridges = David Jones(or if a bit posher Harrods/Harvey Nichols)

BHS = Target & Big W (or John Lewis or Debenhams)

BBC = ABC (though there is no television licence with the ABC)

Guardian = The Advertiser

Metro = Messenger (only you get the metro papers everyday)

Oxford Street = Rundle Mall

Borough Markets = Adelaide Central Markets

Monmouth Coffee = Cibo

Brighton = Brighton (not the same with the pebbles)

Central Heating = Central Air-conditioning

Hampstead Heath = Botanic Park

Ladbrokes = TAB (and William Hill, Paddy Power etc)

Thames = Torrens

Yo Sushi = Sushi Train (and girls I miss Sushi train LOTS!)

Pizza Express = Fasta Pasta

Pret = Bean Bar/Cibo

Paris = Melbourne

Sq. Ft = Metres

Sunshades = Sunglasses (bit weird, sunshades are for the car!)

Transport for London = TransAdelaide

Ken Livingston = Mike Rann

Gordon Brown = Kevin Rudd

Stray Foxes = Stray cats

Foxtons = Toop & Toop

Pebbles = Sand (Beaches)

HSBC = Commonweath Bank

High Streets = Shopping Malls

Blue Water = Marion Shopping Centre

Biscester Village = Harbour Town (but Biscester is designer labels)

Hot @ 20 degrees = Hot @ 40 degrees

Humidity = Super Dry Adelaide Heat

Vauxhall = Holden

“M” roads (motorways)= Southern Expressway

Royal Ascot = Adelaide Spring Racing Carnival

Boots = National Pharmacy

Home Base = Bunnings

Eastenders = Neighbours (plus all the others Corrie, Emmerdale)

Hollyoaks = Home & Away

Football = Aussie Rules

Lords = Adelaide Oval

Posh & Becks = Bec & Lleyton (Hewitt)

Kylie = Kylie (some things never change)

Cornwall = Goolwa

Narrow Boats = House boats

Oxo Tower = Starlight Room

Abbey Wells = Mount Franklin

Innocent = Nudie

Ted Baker = Witchery & Cue

London Marathon = Corporate Cup (does Adelaide have a marathon?!)

Swiss/French Alps = Victorian Alps

Ireland = New Zealand

Sunday Roast on Sunday = Sunday Roast available every day!

BA & Ezy Jet = Qantas & Virgin Blue

Cotswolds = Adelaide Hills

Habitat = Freedom (Furniture)

Odeon = Hoyts

Notting Hill = Notting Hill on DVD

Farmers Markets = Stirling Markets

London Eye/Parliament Hill = View from Mt Lofty

Black Cabs = Taxis

Oyster Cards = Paper Tickets

Everton (Football) = Crows (Football....but Aus Rules)

Boroughs (ie Camden) = City of .... ie Port Adelaide Enfield

Flat (20sq ft) = House (100 sq ft plus)

Lightglobes = Lightbulbs (a weird one)

Drivepath = Driveway

Barmey Army = Lleyton Hewitt supporters (BUT I WILL NEVER JOIN THE ARMY....)

Pubs = Cafes (even when out to dinner you meet at a pub first!)

A - Z (streetmap) = Gregory's

Tom Tom (Sat Nav) = Some sitting in the passenger seat giving you directions from the Gregory's!!

Other things, in general -

In London there is no smoking indoors and this has definitely made going out a much more pleasant experience. It is amazing how much the cigarette smoke contributes to a hangover. However, the downside is most pubs, the older ones especially now smell of old feet, BO, pee and stale beer, not so nice. I am wondering when it will become law in Australia now. I think it has aready!??!

There are also all the logos that you become familiar with, as there are so many things when you arrive that you have no idea what its or associated with, and not so much logos just names of places. Like Thorntons is associated with chocolates, Molten Brown high end toiletries, Orange, BT and O2 are phone companies, TFL is transport for London, and Virgin not only fly planes but do trains too.

I know how to get around London without really a thought to needing to look at a tube map! Even better for most of my regular routes I know where is the best place to stand on the platform to get out at the right spot for my destination. It becomes such a habit that you do it automatically though. For example, this is annoying for me sometimes as if I am on the Jubilee line and want to get out at Finchley road to go to Waitrose (supermarket) I automatically stand where I would to get out at Swiss Cottage and the exits are at complete opposite ends! Oh and I still refuse to catch a bus if I don't have too, they are psycho and tonight was a perfect example(I had to take the bus) as it smelled like someone had peed themselves on the bus....was totally disgusting to the point I had to cover my face with a tissue.

My flat - unfortunately is about the size of a large hotel room, so tiny compared to Australian houses. I actually was in shock when my sister showed me a link to photos of their new "mansion" (it is to me!), a 4 bed house with a million sq. mts of living space.

At home I have turned English and there is a bucket in my kitchen sink! Mind you I think I have an excuse given that my kitchen sink is the size of a laundry trough and I have a "hob" not a stove! I get up by the light of my Lumi alarm clock not by the light of the sun (what sun? well in the winter anyway) I also have gotten used to the no laundry, as all the laundry's are part of the kitchens, and all front loading machines.

Clothing - I have trainers, not sneakers and flip flops not thongs, I don’t wear pants, but trousers – pants are underwear here! I am not even going to go into shopping, its too much, but basically I just avoid the shops, there is too much choice, too easy to spend the money and it just takes hours!

Sports - I watch football not soccer. Well I would prefer to watch rugby, but its pretty much football all the way and its on nearly every night!! Well that's not so true at the moment as I have been without a TV for 6 months and you know what its not so bad!!

TV - I have to pay to watch TV and that includes DVDs played on a laptop, as you need a TV licence to watch any form of TV whether it be on your TV, PC or laptop.

Food - I hardly eat any meat, and have nearly turned vegetarian, but only out of desperation for decent red meat, though I had a steak the other night - and it was fantastic!!! I drink soya or rice milk, sparkling water over still. I have swapped to Brambly apples from Jonathon’s, and clementines for mandarins. I have mange tout instead of snow peas. Red peppers for capsicum, though they are nice over here, not so bitter.

Queues and waiting - everything requires a queue or waiting or take just ages. A simple trip to IKEA to grab a table top ironing board (yes I eventually had to buy one, as was running out of clothing to wear!!) and the whole round trip including lining up at the check outs for 20 minutes, took 2 hours. I only wanted an ironing board!!! At home it would have been a 10 minute round trip in the car to Cheap as Chips, ahhh...

Phone calls, expect to be on hold for at least 10 minutes, at least!! Allow an hour to get anywhere...or be like me and be late for everything, thank goodness the doctor is always running late and my beautician and hairdresser love me to bits!

Bad service - at first I was appalled and got angry, then you find out it makes no difference, so you accept it as the norm. No one who works in a shop seems to know where anything is, they believe they are always right, joke with each other about customers, stand around gossiping and they hardly ever know even what they sell (i.e. i might see something in a magazine and they will say no we don't have that.....). They are annoyed if you ask for help, almost to the point of trying (which for plenty of them is difficult) to look busy if you even attempt to approach you.

What else, well there are the English slang for a start. Must be careful not to say "inn-it" instead of "isn't it", I've started saying "best pleased" instead of "really happy", we say "hiya, alright" for "hi how is it going", terms of endearment are used on random people, such as "lovey", "pet" and "sweetie" - even if you don't know them.

There is so much more I could add to the above, but this blog would never get published if I kept adding to this and thinking of more on a daily basis.

PS....lots of reasons to go home to Australia..eventually...(oh and a visit in 2008 is definitely in store, wink wink, ho ho ho...see you all then!)

The System Sux

Last night I took the train out of Waterloo out down to have dinner with Danni, Tory, Mari and Barns at Danni's place in Surbiton - all good no dramas with that at all except that I got fined 20 quid for fare evasion!!! Ugh

Ok so here your probably thinking, oh Lisa what have you done wrong. Well you know what, absolutely nothing!! I have a monthly travel card for Zone 1 and 2 on my Oyster card, and I have extra cash on it for pre-pay should I got outside of Zone 2, which is exactly what pre-pay is for, so you don't - or rather should not - have to buy a paper ticket for the difference.

Surbiton is in Zone 6 South and apparently despite the fact that they have Oyster machines at the gates exiting the station, pre pay is not valid to be used (it will be in 2009!!) and I have to purchase a paper ticket for the Zone 3-6 part of my trip.

The thing with that is, that one; it's more expensive to buy paper tickets (this is because they are trying to encourage people to use Oyster instead of paper tickets...bit ironic really) and two, it's just unfair, as if I was in the North of London where the tube actually extends all the way to Zone 6, my prepay on the Oyster card would have kicked in. So if you live South your penalised for having Oyster, even though the facility to use it is there and working.

It's also unfair that they use such a sneaky tactic to boost their fare evasion percentage of people caught numbers and it is really all about profits. It is easy for them to guard the gates at a nice area like Surbiton and catch someone like myself as an easy target, who is only out of line because of a stupid loophole in the system. I couldn't even persuade them to let me off from the fine, even when it was clear to see that I was trying to do the right thing, after all i am not a hoody jumping over barriers for a free ride, between Dalston Kingsland and Staines!!!

The ticket inspector who I dealt with was very good really, I had no grouch with him, just the system. He agreed also and encourgaged me to dispute my fine, for which I have 21 days to appeal (thought Danni has already logged and appealed for me - thanks hon!) as he said the more people who dispute such a stupid and discrimanatory loophole the better chance that the rules will be changed sooner rather than later, or not all all. That is all fine, but my purse is still 20 pounds lighter for it.

Anyway, that is my London grouch for the day.

A run, a release...

Tonight when I finally got home from work, I decided I really felt like going for a really long run - well maybe just a little one. I have so much adrenaline running around my body right now, I could not afford for it to be wasted.

So I kitted myself out and packed all my gear to ensure I had my mobile phone, i-pod, oyster card and cash...oh and the house keys!!! A travel pouch is brilliant for all this.

So firstly round to Belsize lane to warm up running through Belsize village, before doubling back when reaching Haverstock Hill road, and winding my way slowly at first back through the long angled avenue road in that area back up towards the top of Fitzjohns Avenue.

I felt totally relaxed, and my breathing was so perfect and even, my stride perfect...even up hill on the really steep stretch up towards Hampstead tube. Then at the top of Hampstead high street (which becomes Haverstock Hill road), I was rather chuffed with myself at that point (especially since I had just passed two guys who were panting at the top of the hill) I began my descent down.

Its a lovely long clear stretch of path, lacking in pedestrians at that time of night (not really a late night shopping bit up there) thats just the right steepness, and it was here that I just let go and ran as fast as I could, I was just so full of energy, it was such a release. By half way down I was practically laughing. I just felt sooo good.

The rest of the run, back off Haverstock Hill Rd back onto Belsize lane and all the way back across the hill to Fitzjohns avenue again, was so easy and just flowed.

I haven't run like that in such a long time and I had truely forgotten how empowering and liberating it is. Such freedom and release, when I got home I wasn't even tired and I had run about 3-4 miles in half an hour.... I was just delighted that I had found my energy and my love for running again.

Read all about it ...my Nana in the News

Just a short tribute to my dear Nana (far right) who was lucky enough to be in the Adelaide papers, showing she is still living it up. Go Nana xxx

Weather update...

Basically its crap....what more can I say. Its not cold, but its certainly not hot, its cloudy then its rainy, and grey - oh soooo sooo grey. You get a bit miserable then the sun comes out to cheer your mood a little, then it hides and blows a gale.

However, with much relief we are starting to get longer days back so it's light just after 7.30am and still light around 4pm now! Just have to make it through February...only one more month, just one more.....that is the most difficult month as spring is just around the corner!

Lisa & Dean...or is that Torvill & Dean...Lisa Skates around London

Canary Wharf Ice Rink, I quite liked this one and being surrounded by the skysrapers
Canary Wharf Ice Rink - Me!
Lisa and Toni at Canary Wharf
Somerset House, sponsored by Tiffany's hence the attempt at Tiffany blue on the ice rink!
Lisa at Somerset House...check out the Nike skates
Natural History Museum - Ain't it pretty, this one was my favourite
Natural History Museum, skating with Danni
Danni skates
Tower of London - What a pretty view
Lisa and Boris from Work at the Tower of London Ice Rink!

A Winter Portrait...Hampstead Heath

Finally on Saturday after days of dreary grey, oppressing, rainy, albeit generally gloomy winter weather (perfect to match my mood too, given I was ill and grumpy in bed) the sun made an appearance. Bliss.

I do truly forget how much sunshine affects my moods, and as soon as i saw the sunshine I made up my mind to go for a walk to the Heath to enjoy the wondrous winter sunshine.

The sun was giving a very convincing impression of providing warmth, but once outside, it proved that that was exactly that, an impression. Burrrr... it was indeed very cold! My walk was invigorating to say the least, any colder I am sure I was going to have frost bite. My tolerance to the cold air was hence quite limited, whilst pink cheeks are cute in children, mine were ready to turn into chilblains!

To warm up, and to speed my progress to my destination of Parliament Hill I broke into a jog. Soon enough with a bit of Jet playing on my i-pod I was in a rhythm and it was like I had never stopped running. So with that 40 minutes later I was at the top.

Parliament Hill has the best views of London by far, yet for some reason I had never made it there before. I was well rewarded, as I was with the rest of the walk, and being the glorious day that it was I was treated to the family tradition that is flying kites on Parliament Hill. Enjoy....oh and....

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!...........and so it goes!

Winter sunshine in the trees
Pathway towards Parliament Hill through the park
Hidden green space...deserted in winter, packed in summer
Winter trees, not all bare and bleak with a lovely blue sky
Lets go fly a kite - Parliament Hill... Hummmmm, everyone loves a little Mary Poppins and that is the first thing I thought of as I wound my way up to the top of the hill on seeing all the kites
A mum helping her son with his kite on Parliament Hill
View across London from the top

Out of Order

Sorry I have been away from my dear blog, my link to the world beyond London, well at the moment, any part of the world beyond my flat. Between snuffling and snorting into countless boxes of supposedly Aloe Vera tissues (my nose is red raw and peeling so possibly more actual aloe content required - note to self to write to blasted tissue company) I have visited the doctor to discover that I - Lisa who never gets sick - has Bronchitis.

How can I possibly keep up with everything that is going on, plan things, work, go out, see friends and more importantly keep up with my own self proclaimed title of Queen of the phrase "no rest for the wicked"! Ahahh. I give up! Body what do you want from me...please tell me and if you get better for me, and pronto, you can have it! Rest, sleep.... are its probably very simple demands, but there is too much to do, anything but a request for that.

I cannot take it anymore!!! I am cancelling plans with friends, even into the next week, for fear that might agravate the already angry virus within me. I NEVER cancel anything....so unlike me, it's attacking my brain am sure. I am getting grumpy at work colleagues whose only crime is to attempt to talk to me, a small feat deemed impossible for me whilst I heave never ending reams of phlegmy tissues via my nose to the bin.

Eating is a chore - how can I possibly put food in my mouth, where that is the only means I have currently to breathe. Makes for very small mouthfuls and speedy chewing, to avoid gasping breathlessness at every bite. It must end.

The only good thing out of all this, is that I am actually enjoying my own company!! That and relishing at my new found potential to become a true workaholic, I have access to work files and email from home!! See I told you it was messing with my brain.

Ok well I think I might give in, just this once, to my bodies demands and go to sleep!

New Years Resolutions!

Well what a year 2007 was and 2008 is going to be the year of years, this year is the coming of age of Lisa. It is so going to be a brilliant and fabulous year, life can only get better and better! I have now made my New Years resolutions to make myself a happier, healthier, more learned, more well rounded individual, yes that is right, an individual! Wow to hear myself say that is a very weird thing indeed!!

It's been nearly 5 months, now, wounds are healing, I have gone from a very low point to a very high point and somewhere in the middle, around and back again. I am the right in the middle of the Powderfinger Song....Up and down and back again...

The lyrics -

I can barely see up and down and back again
Despite what you believe I keep away from trouble
If who I am today's a sign of where I'm going
I'm ready to embrace

If everybody knows just who you are
When your walk on role becomes a major part
Have you ever attempted to be yourself
When everybody wants you to be someone else
Up and down and back again
Going up and down and back again

I think these words are particularly apt!! And the resolutions....now I have to stick to them!

1.Exercise
a. Start running again
b. Pilate's for Monday mornings with Kate at 7am
c. Maintain current ideal weight

2.Food
a. Proper meals at home 3 nights a week
b. Actually go food shopping once a week, proper food – fruit/veg/meat
c. Eat breakfast everyday – fruit/yogurt or muesli (muffins Fridays only)
d. No chocolate at work
e. 1 x coffee a day and no tea at least 3 hours prior to sleeping
f. Eat out properly once a week
g. DO NOT go out drinking more than 3 nights a week and in moderation

3.Well being
a. Take up French lessons again
b. Go to history events (i.e. Hampton court)
c. Read more books, at least 1 a month
d. Join a volunteer group
e. Get a massage every 2 months
f. Get at least 7 hours sleep a night
g. STOP Procrastinating!

4.Organisation
a. Schedule friend catch ups in diary
b. Email friends and ring home more often
c. See at least 1 ballet, 1 opera, 2 shows & 2 bands (before Jun-08)
d. Organise holidays/breaks in advance - plans for Polo lesson, Belfast, Val d'sere (ski), Cinque Terre (Italy), Champagne, Korcula, New York, Eastern Europe (Contiki), Prague, Paris (again), Egypt and I am sure I could figure out more!

5.Money
a. Get budget back up and running – and actually be responsible for spending!
b. Buy a flat in London

6.Work
a. Get a permanent job!
b. Do more work related study.
c. Stay focused and organised!

7.Random
a. Go to a concert on own or even a music festival
b. Update blog weekly

So there you have it... lets see how I go