Another wet and windy weekend

That's right, another 3 day weekend


Boy did I start work in the right month! Not that I get paid, but that's not the point.

I should have known - the week was lovely and warm, but this bank holiday weekend has been rainy and very cold. The perfect weekend for huddling under a blanket and making plans.

Oh yea, and going to an African drumming class!

Djembe!!

After telling my flatmates about the class, Cyril and Arthur (the French guys, so you have to pronounce their names 'See-real' and 'Ar-chur') were keen to come along. They are both musical guys and play guitar, drums and piano between them, so they wanted to go to the intermediate class. I had an idea, an entourage and nothing better to do, so on Sunday afternoon the three of us ventured to Camden Town Markets to get tribal!

By the way, Nicola's last day at her slave labour job at the Chelsea Flower Show was Saturday, so she spent pretty much all day Sunday in bed, hence the reason she wasn't joining us.

After spending about 15 mins trying to find the place (it's very secret and tucked away), we arrived at the Akwaaba drum shop / school. For the next two hours, I beat my little hands upon a goat skin drum, and LOVED IT! Yes, my hand bones were almost bruised afterwards, but the awesome tribal power of the drum hypnotised me, and I think I am going to make it a regular class. I was able to keep up with the rhythms, but the range of sounds that the djembe drum can make is amazing. It is basically a whole drum kit in the one instrument. So I am going to start back at the beginners class next week to learn how to make all the different tones.

I think the guys really enjoyed it too, the music was much different to what they are used to, but I think it was good for them to experience the different beats and see how awesome the teachers were.

If you want to hear what it sounded like, check out You Tube and search for "Funky Duke Djembe Drummers", that's pretty close to how we were after 2 hours. The class played the rhythm while the teachers did all the complicated freestyling to make it sound really cool.

Oh yea, and there was a guy walking around Camden yesterday dressed EXACTLY like Captian Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. I did a double take. I was going to run after him and get a photo, but that is really touristy and tacky, and I don't think his Egyptian-looking girlfriend would have appreciated it.

In other news...

Work is going really well. After letting my manager know that I thought I was being 'underutilised' (my talent was being wasted on filing and scanning), she has since come to realise my awesome talent and I am now doing the internal recruitment for APACS. This is great, I am really enjoying liaising with the hiring managers, recruiters, advertisers and candidates. I feel like I'm really helpng out now, and co-ordinating is what I do best if I do say so myself. So they can get on with other work and know that recruitment is in capable hands :)

Also, I mentioned that this weekend I have been making plans. These plans relate to what I'm going to be doing for the next year or so. I decided that I can't face a winter here in London, so I'll be working here in London until the end of September, then in the beginning of October I'm starting a 2 month tour of Europe. Now, Europe is a pretty big place with loads of countries I want to see, but for this trip I think I will start with France - Spain - Portugal - Morocco. 2 weeks in each place should be a pretty good trip. It will be Autumn, so hopefully the weather should still be good. After that, I will be coming home for December / January, so I'll have time to visit everyone and catch up with the Gisborne bunch as well. Then in February I'll be on the move again, and if I have enough money I'd like to stop off somewhere in South East Asia on my way back to England. That's right, when the weather is starting to improve, I'm coming back to use up the rest of my working holiday visa and see more of Europe! Probably Eastern Europe, I'd love to see Greece, Macedonia and Turkey. And maybe Georgia. And a lot of other places, we'll see what happens.


So that's the plan. It's good to have a goal, now I have a reason for not going to the movies or clubbing. Before I was just being stingey, now I have purpose.

That's the main news for this week, I have included a few random pics as well just for fun :)

Hugs from London, I mean Linden

PS: Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go on. Happy Birthday to Dad for last Tuesday.

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