Month 3.5 in London

Hi all.

Well, doesn't time fly......figured we've been here just over 3.5 months already.

Missing all our friends in NZ and in Canada .. sorry we haven't been to good at keeping in touch, but now that our main method of communication is up and running (aka our Computers and a fat broadband net connection ;) that might change.

So,
I think I mentioned that we've moved to our own place now...was a shame to leave the good ship Geary Road behind, but I must say we are quite happy with the new place so far (pictures maybe one day).

I guess it has been a busy few weeks (months?) since last post...both Caren and I are working away hard, and have been keeping fairly close to inner London as we get fully settled...Luckilly though, we're pretty much there now!..

I even have my own bank account and everything ;)

(PS Sorry for the sh**loads of biggish pics in this post....I am too lazy to reduce them any further!)

(Sams birthday drinks at Geary rd)

The move was made much easier by some good friends of ours from NZ (well one we know is from NZ, the other is his wife who he met over here!) who had a car.

Saved our lives, as we had a fair bit of stuff to cart, and trust me, you don't really want to be lugging tons of stuff on the Tube.

(Caren leaving Geary Rd for last time......)

(...and arriving at our new place...;)

The new place is in South London, at a place called Clapham Common (well, Clapham Common is the massive park we live accross from)...takes about 35 - 40 mins by tube to get to work at Canary Wharf for us both.

Anyways, enough of the boring crappy details...what have we been up to?

Well, a few weeks back we went and had a look at the Tower of London, which is what the main royal fortress is called.

It's now (obviously) a tourist attraction, but is still very impressive (photo above).

It is where the Crown Jewels are kept, and is attended to by soldiers from the british army (with very real guns), and stewards who actually live there, and act as tour guides.

These stewards are called the Yeoman Warders, and are all from the Armed Forces...mostly very senior ranks..its considered a high honour to be selected as a Yeoman Warder.

(Our "beef Eater" guide telling us some history...)

(some of the old fancy houses for the rich friends of royalty)

( London Bridge from the walls of the tower)

Summer has finally arrived...even though it is now Autumn!

It's been a few weeks of 24ish degrees (which is pretty hot around these parts!) which has been nice.

A couple of weekends back we even headed to the beach!

Yep, it was no different to the beautiful sandy / deserted beaches of the north-north island...hardly anyone around at all!

(us arriving at Brighton...one of these arrives every 10 -15 mins)

Caren, Claire (a friend from Geary Rd) and Justin caught the train down to brighton on the south coast...a trip of about 70 minutes.

The weather was very nice, it must be said...

We spent quite a few hours lounging on the large smooth stones of the "beach"....even got sun-burnt! (Caren quite badly!)

There was thousands of people around, and it was very VERY tacky (just like you see on the TV) , but all in all it was actually quite pleasant.

(Caren and Claire on the Train)

(A shot of about 1/3rd of the beach once the crowds had started to thin out a bit in the afternoon).

Once we'd had our fill of the sun, we headed out onto the pier which is like a permanant carnival on a wooden pier out in the water.

Quite large and plenty of those who enjoy a dabble on the pocker machines or coin shufflers ;).

Theres also lots of side-show's and dodgy rides.

Caren Claire and Justin went on one, and I volunteered to stay below ;)

(..hey...some people are scared of Clowns ok?..me..I just dont do dodgy carnival rides!)

So that was a fun day out anyways.

The following weekend (about 1.5 weeks ago now) , Caren and I went up to the Burleigh Horse Trials, a famous 3 day event in Stamford, about 60mins North by train.

Caren actually went up on Friday morning with some friends of ours who were also keen (they had a good friend from NZ competting in the event!) by car, and I joined her Friday night after work.

Sat morning was the start of the Cross Country (most peoples favourite), so we made our way to the event.....well....at least...we tried.

Thinking to save some cash, we had the Taxi driver drop us off at where we thought the gates were..

Unfortunately by some trick of the lights (or maybe it were Leprchauns??..oh no, wrong country) , we were actually FRIGGEN MILES AWAY!

(caren walking along the road-well-travelled...you can't tell from the photo, but she is in a very very grumpy mood with me for some reason...;)

I think we walked for about an hour or so before we finally came accross the "cars only" entrance at the back of the estates.

Bugger that we thought, and made like cars.

It was actually quite a beautiful walk, and gave me my first real taste of the english countryside.

The grounds are ENORMOUS as is Burleigh "house"

(our summer cottage)

Anyway, finally there we settled in for a day of whatching the even from varius vantage points around the course.

The event it self is more than just horse sports though...theres all kinds of shops and stalls and activity's-for-the-rich.

I was all positively upper class!

So, a good day in the Sun whatching horses jump and high-bred folk sip champagne on the rear bumpers of their Rovers and Jags..

(A horse...jumping!)

It was a hard and tiring day due to the heat, and amount of walking we did, so Caren caught 40 winks in the car park ;)

After the Event, we wandered into Stamford, which is a wonderful village/town, all VERY VERY old and copol...can't elieve I didnt get any photo's of it..oh well..I'll blame the heat.

We had dinner at The George, a famous old hotel which was pretty amazing, with dozens of rooms for various things (several eating rooms...pubs, cocktail lunges, garden bars etc..)

We ended up eating in a nice courtyard, which was very pleasant.

(Us sitting down to eat...I think there's royalty in the background...allthough perhaps royalty don't sit on plastic chairs!)

Anyway, we returned to the hotel after a long day, only to get up and head back to the 3rd day, the showjumping.

Unfortunately seats in the actual arena had been sold out for weeks before teh event, so we had to do our best with the various large screens around the grounds, and spent most of the day eating ice-cream, and laughing at the ludicrously rich :)

Anyways, It's been a good few weeks...though flat out at work.

We've some more travelling coming up in a while, as we've just booked our Egypt tour for end of Oct which should be great!

Ok, well..until next time.

Craig