Life is good in London

Despite my protests that "I'm only living in London now, you don't want to hear about boring day to day life", I've been roped into continuing to write. But I actually enjoy it, if only someone would pay me for my comedic wit and musings on my life... no such luck.

Some of you will have seen the FB update after Oktoberfest weekend - our trek to London was a hefty one at any time, let alone after a large weekend - a 20minute walk, a U-bahn, an S-bahn, a ridiculously large and slow border control line, a flight, a bus, a train, a tube and then another walk (via McD's for a cheeseburger for our efforts) we arrived at home from Munich nine hours later. I let myself relax for what was left of the day as it was straight into job hunting for me on Tuesday. First up though, to do something about the state my appearance had gotten itself into over the past three months. Gumtree is my new best friend and I replied to a girl wanting hair models to practice cutting on for free "perfect" I thought, "I have no money, or care about my hair, let's give it a whirl" - I wanted a fringe, this was going to be disastrously interesting... but as it turns out my freebie haircut is pretty sweet, and against all odds am enjoying the fringe, even if it means I have to actually put some effort in each day.

I had decided that I was going to start work on Thursday, despite the minor detail of not actually having a work to go to - it wasn't looking good as I woke up on Thursday morning with nothing more to do except plan my costume for a Best of British party, but late that afternoon I got a call up for Friday start. I temped with the loveliest people for eight days and even managed to coordinate my morning tube commute with Hilary for some much needed catch up time on life over the past nine months. A seamless change in jobs midweek saw me start back at TCS (The Children's Society, where I was last year) for what started out to be three weeks, then five and now until mid Jan.

Living arrangements have been fun as always. I started back dossing with Beatsy and Cave but a generous offer made by Kent and the 51 Averill crew saw me with my own bed for ten days while Jen was away. After god only knows how long of having someone encroaching on my personal space I really couldn't come to terms with having my own room and struggled to sleep properly. I even had to remind myself in the morning as I fossicked in the darkness that I could turn the light on if I wanted! 

The first weekend was full of promises from all of us to just have a quiet one - save money, give livers a break yadda yadda. As the week went on we decided that maybe we could just have a medium one. This meant we would just go to the local for a couple of hours. But being London, "locals" are definitely not few and far between and as we hadn't actually specified one local we had to try a few. Medium night, slight success but really a fail. We've kept very busy each weekend, after all "if you are bored of London then you are bored of life". We've had a birthday dinner to a Speakeasy restaurant where you actually had to pull a book off a bookshelf to let the door swing open, after stating your case for the detective (our Liger, Clive, was missing). Dress up (of course!!) house parties, strolls along the Thames to make the most of the last of the sunshine, missions to markets, brunches with new friends met in Europe, catch up drinks with friends from all over in various pubs, a weekend down in Brighton wandering the shops in the lanes, partaking in the carnivals on the pier, pub crawling by night, and enjoying our little hostel located above a male only sauna. Pub quiz each Tuesday night where we fluctuate significantly in the rankings - the elusive number one spot is yet to be achieved. 

I've started running again, but after receiving my rejection letter for the London Marathon morale isn't as high as it should be. But have managed to hustle together a small group at work to run at lunch time, all guys and all of whom are much faster and fitter than I am, they are killing me slowly. Focus now is on the Copenhagen Marathon in May – watch this space. This week I borrowed a bike from some very lovely and trusting friends and started cycling to work, why have I never done this before?! It's faster than the tube, its free, I get to exercise, I get to see London and I get to dice with death while playing in traffic – twice a day! Fantastico!

I have delighted in having my clothes back again. Jeans! Jerseys! Wellies! (It is winter after all) and everything ever made by Kilt. Amazing. I've shed some tears having to say goodbye to my sister and other friends already – I've only been here a month! Stop leaving! And there is a lot of news coming from back home that really makes it the hard part of being all the way over here. I do accept sponsorship from anyone who wishes to fly me home and back again though, so bear that in mind. Photo's are at a minimum, I will try to take more. This weekend sees us cycling all over London to visit markets, then its Rome for the AB's games, Cardiff for the AB's and then its December and Christmas. Year has gone too fast!! Email me back, I promise they will be replied too xxx