Football Heaven!

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On the first day back in London I got a text from my flatmate, Irene, to say that our other flatmate, Scot has already moved out (without saying anything), and took all the cooking pots. Great!

I made pasta for dinner in the one dodgy fry-pan that he had left and chatted to Irene about what to do about moving out next Friday! - We both haven’t found a flat yet, nor have seen anything we really like.

I went to Irene’s work on Thursday to do some flat hunting with her, but still nothing too inspiring.

I met Helen, Helen and Heloise at Wagamama’s in Leicester Square for dinner, then went to the Coliseum to watch the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Ballet with Khoi and Tarsh. The Coliseum was a beautiful old building that reminded me slightly of The Civic in Auckland.
The ballet was beautiful, with amazing costumes and sets, and all danced to perfection.

Helen and I went on an ice-cream mission at the interval, and while waiting at the bar, the guy next to me asked for a ‘screwdriver’. The bar tender, at first looked a little confused, then the seemed to focus and went to what we thought was to prepare a drink. Instead he returned with an actual screwdriver! Helen explained to the guy that a screw driver is actually a drink with vodka and orange. Classic!


I headed into work on Friday with a few surprised faces to see me, as I was not meant to start work until Monday.

I caught the train back to Marylebone, and guy boarded the train a stop later. He walked past my 4-seater area and mid-stride, stopped and then sat in the seats opposite me, but back one row. I didn’t think too much of it to start with, until he sat with this head leaned between the seats starring at me for most of the journey. I tried to ignore him, but he managed to catch my eye when I looked up once, and gave me a smile - as so I smiled in return. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure.

I was trying to decided between the quick - out the door first and bolt tactic, which leaves me open to him catching up or following me, or the taking ages to pack all your stuff up and last of the train tactic, which allows you to keep as much following distance from him as you like, but does leave you open to him coming up to you and talking to you while you put your stuff away.

I went with the bolt tactic, and dived into the ladies bathrooms, by which time I was pretty sure I had lost him.

Irene and I spent most of the weekend flat hunting. On Saturday Helen decided that we were going to have a night of cheesy dancing and maybe meet up with Benny at a night club.

Helen, Heloise and I met up with Matt and other Helen at Embankment and went to the night club that Helen wanted to take us to called ‘Heaven’.
It was a ₤12 door charge and didn’t sound like it was going to be pumping until a bit later on, so fill in time we headed down to the River Thames to a bar called ‘Tattershall Castle’, which was a boat anchored off the wharf over looking the London Eye and the Southbank.

We had a bit of a boogie until about 1am, and headed back up the road to Heaven. They seemed to have about as much security there as a medium sized airport: including metal detectors!

Once inside we meet up with Benny, who showed us around the five different rooms of varies size and music styles.
We danced the night away, and while the music was pretty good, but with the interesting surroundings I was quite happy to go back to the safety of my bed by the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday, Irene, Pete and I went to look at a Mews flat that was advertised in Maida Hill - only 5 days left and counting.

Irene and I both liked it straight away. It had three reasonably sized bedrooms on the first floor and a decent lounge, dining, kitchen and toilet/laundry on the second floor. After a little look around the area we thought we would apply for the property on Monday.

In the afternoon I went over to Covent Garden to catch up with some people from the Edinburgh Hogmanay Tour over a drink and pizza at the ’Porterhouse’ before walking back home (I won’t be able to do that for much longer).

Tuesday was a reasonably productive day - if not on the jobs I was working on, then definitely on Gumtree placing adverts for our unwanted furniture from the last flat and letting out Leah’s ‘spare’ room.

Everything seemed to be moving quite fast. The landlord had arranged to meet us at the new flat at 8.30pm tomorrow to sign the contract, which he had sent through today.
Irene and I spent the evening trying to pack all our stuff into boxes and suitcases, ready to move - as we had to be out by Friday (3 days to go!)

I caught the train home from work on Wednesday with the new guy, Carlo, from Milan. We worked out that he lives just 5 or so houses down the road from our new flat! What a small world!

I got home and did more packing, and then Bal came over to help us disassemble our beds before heading over to our new house in Chippenham Mews!

We met Theo, our landlord, Andy, the handyman, and Helen, the previous tenant. We talked through then signed the Tenancy agreement contract. Irene realised she left her cheque book at home to give Theo the bond money!
We finally got our new keys and as soon as the others left, Irene and I did a ‘yay-we-finally-have-a-flat-with-only-two-days-to-go!’ dance.

We dumped some stuff in our rooms, and then went to a very funky bar called ‘Beach Blanket Babylon’ for a celebrationary drink.

I left work to get home a bit early on Thursday, and packed up the rest of my stuff into boxes. Grant, Helen and Pete came over to help us get our stuff into the removal’s van.

Amazingly, he could fit most of our house including two beds in the back of his van.
The boys went with the mover guy to the new house to start unloading, while Irene, Helen and I checked over the rest of the house and caught the bus. By the time we got there, the boys had finished unloading! Awesome!

We eventually got to sit down, and were so happy we finally got a new flat with 1 day to spare! We had takeaways for dinner, then I put my bed together and tried to unpack some stuff until the early hours of the morning.

On Friday, we had to work out how to get to work from our new flat. We found a bus that goes from just near our house to both Marylebone Train Station and also close to Irene’s work.

I met Helen and Beth (reuniting the couch girl trio) in Fulham for Wade birthday party.
We left about 11pm, Helen walked home while Beth and I jumped on the tubes at Fulham Broadway. We got stuck in the tube lines between West Brompton and Earl’s court for ages (due to a ‘person under train’ all the way out in Barking) - apparently there were 4 tubes in front of us trying to get through to Earl’s Court. We finally got moving again after about half an hour or so, only to stop again a bit further on.

We eventually got to Paddington after the last tubes on the other lines and finished, and said goodbye to Beth (who carried on to Edgware Road). I planned on take a bus from Paddington, but none were coming anytime soon, so ended up walking all the way home. I got back about 2.30am - to find Beth was still waiting at the bus stop!

Saturday = Trying to find spot for all my junk day.

I meet Suz and Matt at North Greenwich where we made our way to Charlton Athletic Football Club Stadium to watch the Charlton vs Middlesbrough Premiership game.

There were over 26,000 people there and the atmosphere was just amazing! We arrived supporting Middlesbrough, as they were meant to be the better team, but once we were firmly seated in the Charlton grandstand with all their chats and so forth, our allegiance soon changed.

A got a call from Brendan midway through the game, and while I was on the phone, Middlesbrough scored another goal - and I ended up yelling down the phone ‘Did you see that!?’ - guess maybe not!?

I headed back home for dinner then meet Suz and Matt etc at Belushi’s in Fulham for a few drinks. I left early to make my way to Battersea. I jumped the bus that was just arriving at the bus stop, and ended up in Putney Bridge, thinking I was going the in the right direction.
Two more buses later and a bit of walking, I finally made it to ‘Dusk’ to meet Ben, his girlfriend, Minna, and sister, Kate, for Kate’s flatmate’s birthday.

We had a big catch up and storey telling of days gone by in New Zealand.

Irene and I spent Sunday morning clearing out the spare room. We took all the junk out of it, removed the old bed, assembled the new bed and rearranged the furniture. Once we had finished the room looked really nice.

We went to our old flat at Marble Arch and did one last clean up. Irene finished the drawing she was doing out her window, while I sat in the bath (for lack of furniture) and updated by journal.

Pete met us at the flat and got us a bottle of wine and some nipples (and Oh My Gosh, I tried hummus for the first time!) to have on the roof as one final goodbye to our flat - we are really going to miss that place!

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Photos

The Chicks
Helen, Heloise, Helen, Hannah

Heaven
Heloise, Hannah, Benny, Helen

Football Girls
Suz & Hannah at Charlton Athletic FC

Bath Time
Hannah caches up on some journal notes

Roof-top Party
Hannah & Irene at Strathearn Place

My New Room!
Chippenham Mews