Birthday Fun

Nath got me tickets to Oliver for my birthday - awesome

Clare and I discovered strawberry and lime cider - YUM

Before dinner drinks

Nath and Emma with their random looking rice!

Smoking a shisha pipe

I had a fanatstic birthday. The day started with a huge long chat to Mum and Dad through skype, during which I opened the presents they gave me. Awesome. Met up with Clare and had a yummy lunch and a shop along Oxford St and Covent Garden/lLeicester Square area. I met up with Nath after he finished work and he took me to see Oliver the westend show. It was fantastic. A much more classier production than the version I remeber being part of with Heretaunga Intermediate. Yesterday Julia, Bhav, Emma and Clare came around for afternoon drinks and dinner at a local Persian restaurant, the food wasn't great but we had fun smoking our shisha pipe afterwards. My throat hurt this morning so I think thats the end of my smoking days.
This coming week is the last week of the school year then its 6 weeks of nothing for me. I am looking into summer coaching jobs - to keep me occupied and keep a little bit of cash rolling in.
Nath is enjoying his job - there has been a lot more interest in their products and hits on their web page.
Not long til bro Nath and CJ arrive, 1st Aug. Their flight arrives at 5:50am so its going to be an early start if I go to the airport. So early infact that the tube wont be running.
The summer weather has gone away for the moment, I think Clare bought the shitty NZ winter with her, hope my summer weather comes back soon.

Cock for dinner!

Update

Beautiful wedding dress - Anna you can have dibs on this one!

Transport for London - Underground set up. Candace you will think this is so much fun - and it was.

Bus scenario

Zane and Nath - notice any similarities?

My work at TfL has finished, back to supply teaching for two weeks before summer holidays begin.
Nath had a big work sales pitch yesterday. Hopefully it will lead to some sales. I'm heading along to meet his boss tonight at work drinks. I have painted my nails for the occasion.
Zane stayed with us for a few nights, we went out a bit and met some of his mates that live in London. Will see Zane again at the end of Aug in Vienna for his wedding.
Not long til Nath number 2 arrives. His flight gets in at 5:50am so Im not overly keen to meet him at the airport, but I will cause Im nice.
Amy stayed the last 2 nights. She bought me a jug to mix my pimms in, so quintessentially English -a jug of pimms on a summer day. Pimms is fortified wine, drunk with lemonade, and cut up fruit like cucumber (yuck - mine never has cucumber), lemones, oranges, strawberrys. Anything goes really. We nearly polished off a bottle in one afternoon! Nice set up with the nibbles too :)

Derby Weekend

We have just had a fun weekend away in Derby with Helen and Chris. It was great visiting them at their home, it was especially nice to be able to sit outside on the lawn. Derby was very relaxing even though it is similar in size to Wellington in population you wouldn't know it as there are no high rise buildings or busy commercial streets. We had several BBQ's and watched the soccer along with a couple of their friends who were supporting Germany (the mood in the lounge was not good).
The weather has been amazingly hot here lately getting up to 30c most days, and to make it worse my air con in the office has broken down and they have not been able to fix it!
Michelle has 3 more days at TFL and is then looking to teach again. We're looking forward to Zane arriving this weekend as it will be fun to hangout together in london.
Not alot else happening this week
laters,

All Whites and Bon Jovi

The All White's rocked more than Bon Jovi did!!
Nath and I watched the game with Emma, Bhav, Kat, Pip, Sunks, Tom and Amarith. These are all the people we know in London! It was an awesome game and Tom who is English really got in behind the Kiwi's and found it funny when we cheered when the ball got into the Italian half. Much better to support a team with no expectations, than to support a team with high expectations that they never fulfil! Tom is going to support the All Whites once England get knocked out :)
The draw with Italy was a major highlight that I thought would be hard to beat but Bon Jovi blew me away. Awesome. Just being at the O2 arena was pretty cool. The indoor stadium is just one part of the venue, there are loads of pubs and restuarants inside the venue. Bon Jovi was massive. They were fantastic and played all their number ones plus some new tracks too.
Nath's celebrations got a bit out of hand and by the end of the night he was man down in a big way. I have bribed him to buy me flowers and choccies or his spew pictures will get posted!! He has 24hrs :) Check out Nath in the video as Bon Jovi wrap up the concert with their biggest song ever.

Work is great and I really like what I'm doing. My contract has been extended for a further week but I can't see it going longer than that. This job has totally put me off supply teaching because I know that there are way better jobs out there.
We are staying with Helen and Chris this weekend in Derby. Im very excited to see them plus also to check out Derby. I worked with Helen at Paraparaumu College (for those of you who don't know the connection) and Chris was lucky enough to work with one of my flat mates and coach my football team. Then the following weekend Zane arrives on Saturday and stays til Wednesday. Lots happening which is very cool.
Go the All Whites.

Toast NZ

The Feelers - not that you can see them.


Getting a dose of NZ culture

Goodies from home flanked by a Speights and L&P

Polo action

Nathan and I had a great day at Toast NZ today. The day kicked off sourcing NZ goodies! We thought mellowpuffs at £1 per packet was a good deal (even though we knew they were expired). Unfortunately the biscuit has gone stale and the marshmellow bit a little hard. Nath was easily excited by the sale of speights and I spotted some cans of L&P. The rest of the day I drank HB sav :) There were also stalls set up to lure us into buying cheap travel deals. We took a sample of pamphlets to look through. 2 for 1 deals on sail Croatia, Im pretty keen aye.

We watched a polo match, Eng v NZ, NZ lost by one goal. There were performances from the Ngati Ranana Maori club and headline act The Feelers. The weather played its part and I got a touch of sunburn. Summer is on its way.

I have scored a sweet job for 2 weeks. Hopefully I am going to be totally awesome and they keep me on for longer. I will be working for Transport for London (TFL) and teaching primary aged students how to use the tube safely. We set up displays with information and the students come to us, then also have seminars from the Police and Fire departments. Hopefully students will be on their best behaviour as they are on an outing from school. Much of my day will be spent travelling to sites around London, setting up the display, then talking to groups of students, 5-10 in a group, for 10min then they move off and I get a new group to entertain. The job sounds like fun, is good pay, I get provided with a travel card (free tube), polo shirts, I can wear jeans and finish at 4ish. Nice.

Had a night out with Amy last night. A friend of hers, Simzy, was playing at a local pub so we wandered down and had a good time. Simzy played some classic Kiwi covers and we sung our heads off. Plus, cause Amy went to see him play, he bought us a bottle of wine on his tab :) To be fair I wasn't up for a day of drinking when I woke up this morning. But in true never give up style, I pulled it together and had some wines today. Legend. All this one day after telling my Mum Im not drinking or going out much at the moment.

Definately bed time. Nite all.

Dover

Hi Guys,

Loads of pics to update you with. May just do one big random entry, rather than lots of little ones.Firstly I caught up with my cousin Alicia and her boyf Rob. It was a really nice sunny day so we met them down at the park (you can see from the photos they got a bit too much sun!). The day ended back at Alicia's flat with too many gins on the deck and the boys spotting aeroplanes. Was great to catch up with a familiar face, even though Leesh and I haven't seen each other since Christmas 2006 (we think). Rob is into snowboarding so we were already making plans for a ski trip during the dark and lonely winter months!We have moved in, and settled, into our flat. Our flatties, Brendan and Catherine, have been busy buying loads of shelves from Ikea which makes the flat look really nice. Nath and I scored a toaster for £4 pounds from Sainsburys, 4x tea towels for £1 and a vaccum cleaner for £40. They have been our major contributions to the flat. Yes the tea towels are shit, guess somethings you should never skimp on, though I can't imagine I would ever want to spend much money on tea towels!! The flat is in a mint location and we are loving being so close to the shops, pubs, supermarket and tube station (4min walk - at Naths pace, 8min for me!). It is really weird not having a seperate laundary room, we only have a front loader machine in the kitchen and no washing line. Its a real mission getting sheets dried - use the dining room chairs to drape them over.Our room

The kitchen and laundary, wee bit tiny!

Lounge, looking through to dining room

Our bathroom, luckily we don't have to share :)

Over the long weekend we decided to visit Dover. Nath was super keen as Dover is the site of a big castle and played a part in WWI and WWII. Before and during WWII secret tunnels were dug out in the soft chalky earth and the evacuation of Dunkirk was masterminded from rooms within these tunnels. Over the long weekend they had memorials for Dunkirk and there were 'soldiers' and war re-enactments. It was great day and we ended up spending 5 and half hours wandering through the castle, watching war games, exploring underground tunnels and going to look out points, used in the war to alert others of impending air attacks or invasions by sea.

The famous white cliffs

The main tower of the Castle


Looking out from the top of the Castle

View of the Castle from down in Dover

This week it is mid term break so no work for me, then 6 weeks left til summer holidays. I'm still applying for permanent jobs starting Sept, so far no luck. Will wait and see what happens. I'm fairly confident I will get a position it just may not be at a very good school!! Have applied for some private schools so I have my fingers crossed for those schools. Yesterday I caught up with ex-flattie Amy which was good times. She has moved to London so no doubt will see a lot of her. Nath is loving his job. Has got his laptop fixed but we are still waiting for internet to get connected at home. Should happen within the next 7 days. I am meant to be at the internet cafe applying for jobs so I better go.