katiesfootprints: December 2012

Christmas time already – the year has well and truly disappeared! The fantastic girls I am living with at the moment are doing a stellar job of organising Christmas Day for all (twenty five plus) of us for our Orphan Christmas – which we are holding out hope of being a white one too. It's certainly been cold enough for it lately!

I'm lucky it's only been just over a month since I last wrote one of these – I was struggling to remember what I had been up to. Luckily that is what phone photos are for... although some things are probably better forgotten. Anyway, in this month or so, I've managed to squash a lot in. Changing temporary address's was one of them, but all this really means is that for the time being I am taking over space in someone else's room/house for a while – until I am politely, or otherwise, moved on.

Work has been frantic and what started out as a joke last year about me being back to organise the Christmas Party again this year turned out to be the reality – be careful what you wish for! We spent Friday afternoon crammed into the London Mayor, Boris Johnson's, favourite restaurant for a traditional Christmas dinner which wouldn't have been complete without its Turkish twist – nothing says festive like Kalamari and Baklava. But all jokes aside, the food was delicious and it was a great afternoon away from the office wearing stupid hats and exchanging useless Secret Santa gifts.

The weeks fly by in a flurry of catching up with friends in all parts of this city, forever trying to make a dent in the never ending quest to get to every pub in London. The elusive top spot at the weekly pub quiz is still just outside our grasp but we're getting closer! I'm still cycling to and from work each day and am finally starting to figure out how this whole city fits together – it's a lot smaller than you might think! In theory the lunch time running should be making me fitter but the sometimes negative temperatures make me question my sanity and seriously doubt that there has been any change at all.

Weekends have been spent discovering the delights that are the markets of London. One weekend Beatsy and I decided we would mission it on our bikes eastward to the Bermondsey Markets – this was a cute little row of delectable treats set under the arches of an old rail line. After drooling our way up and down the lane we returned to our bikes to go and meet up with friends only for me to discover I had a flat tyre as far away from home as possible - damn Murphy and his law! Fortunately for me the only shop as far as the eye could see was a bike repair shop. So we dropped Delilah off to get patched up and continued on to our favourite Borough markets to collect a few treats – namely the mushroom pate. Must find out what the recipe to this is!

I sometimes head to the Leather Lane market, a week time favourite, when I need to escape the office for a bit. I spent last Sunday roaming around a little market in Marylebone full of fresh and organic (yes right up my alley!) meats, veges and cheeses. Then made my way to Liverpool St which is home to the huge and bustling Spitalfield markets to catch up with friends and purchase a woolly winter jacket – success! This weekend just been, think Notting Hill, and I spent the majority of Saturday walking up and down Portobello Road sightseeing everything significant in the movie and delighting in all the weird and wonderful things these famous markets have to offer.

But besides visiting copious amounts of markets I have actually made it out of town a couple of times. First weekend away was over to Rome for the All Black's vs Italy game. We soaked up as many sights as we could in the 48 hours we were there – Pantheon, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain etc. We visited the Pope briefly in Vatican City (actually some of the group did see the Pope when they went back the next day) before making our way to Stadio Olympico for the whole reason for the weekend – rugby! The atmosphere was phenomenal and the amount of photos we Kiwis were requested to be in was ridiculous – world famous right here. We gorged ourselves on pizza, pasta and red wine and returned to London amping for the next game the next weekend.

It was Cardiff's turn to play host next so we made the pilgrimage to watch the AB's take another win in the spectacular Millenium Stadium. Celebrations ensued and the rest of the night was lost on the dance floor of many a Welsh pub. So it was with a lot of excitement that we headed along to the Kiwi House - a pop up bar, that popped up especially for the final game against the English - to cheer the AB's on to their final victory! ...or not. The rest of that night was lost commiserating on the dance floor of many a London pub.

Other excursions have included a day trip to the picturesque city of Oxford. We wandered around the colleges for a few hours, entertained ourselves by trying to break the ice on a frozen over lake and then spent the remainder of the day supping on mulled wine and cider at The Eagle and Child - a pub made famous by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis who wrote and first spoke many of their literary creations here.

I braved the freezing cold to participate in a monthly cycle around the city of London known as Critical Mass. Hundreds of cyclists converge at Waterloo Bridge and then disrupt the traffic for a few hours while cycling around in a mass group - not sure why everyone else participates but I just enjoy getting amongst it and seeing new parts of the city.

But the highlight of the month goes to Alanis Morrisette - she put on a fantastic show at the O2 and rocked our socks off with all our child hood favourites which we belted out alongside her, completely out of tune of course.

That's me for now, until next time. Have a very Merry Christmas - I'm going to try my hand at making some egg nog!

London Cycling with Beatsy!