Arrivederci, Hasta Luego, So long...

It seemed to be the week of goodbyes.
Brendan went back down to Southampton on Monday and I also booked out trip to Dublin for St Patty’s day <- bring it on!!

After work on Tuesday, we all headed over to the Temple WalkAbout to say goodbye to Katie how is heading back to NZ for a couple of months.

On Thursday I went to Warwick Avenue tube station to meet my best mate Suz (from Uni) and Matt who have just came back from travelling Europe for a month! and will be staying with us for a couple of days.
We went home and had a big catch up about their trip and various adventures, and to meet the rest of my flat mates.

Friday was the day of achievements.
I spent half the day sorting out and booking mine and Leah’s trip to Venice for my impending quarter life birthday next weekend! From what I’ve heard from Suz, Matt and Carlo, Venice is going to be fabulous!

In the afternoon we for the overdue results back from last weeks pickings for six nations office sweepstakes to find I was at the top of the table!

Unfortunately, I’m sure it won’t last long… well not long enough!

Brendan came back up to London for the weekend and we went out for a nice dinner at Leicester Square with Suz and Matt.

After dinner Suz and Matt caught up with some of Matt’s friends at a nearby Irish pub, while Brendan and I went to Tiger Tiger for Jonno’s (a friend from Beca in NZ) leaving party - Another one bite the dust.

After saying goodbye to Jonno we headed up to ‘Wax’ bar near Oxford Circus for Klaus’ 25th birthday party, where I also caught up with a couple of guys from the Edinburgh trip.
Then caught the last tube home with two rather sore feet!

We spent Saturday hanging out with Suz and Matt. They did the final packing of their bags and then we went to check out a nice local pub on the edge of the canal.
By the time we had finished it was time for Suz and Matt to head to the airport. We collected their stuff from the flat and headed off to the tube station. We said goodbye at Piccadilly Circus and watched them drive away in the tube to Heathrow.
I was a little sad, so Brendan suggested we to go Waxy's for a bit to cheer up. Before I knew it was time to head to Waterloo Station to say yet another goodbye to Brendan, who was heading back down to Southampton.

That night I went out with Carlo and Annalisa (another Italian girl from work) and some of their friends to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. I wasn't the only one new to eating Lebanese, which was nice. The other guys organised a nice spread of tapa style starters, so I was very good and tried lots of new things, including some parcel thing wrapped with olive leaves. Somewhat different to what I am used to!

I spent most of Sunday shopping with Carlo in South Kensington and got some really nice clothes that I had my eye on. We did a mission walk to Harrods in Knightsbridge to get a cute teddy bear for my niece Amelia, first birthday in March.
Afterwards, we headed back to Chippenham Mews to get our weekly instalment of Top Gear.

Tuesday is a brilliant night in London, especially if you head over to the Notting Hill Coronet to watch a movie for £3.50! Irene calls it the 'Muppet Theatre', because it looks the theatre out of the kids TV show. This time I was off to see 'Music and Lyrics', which as Leah puts it - 'you have to see a Hugh Grant film while you're here!'

I got a text from Helen on Wednesday morning informing us that there had been earthquakes in Auckland!
which was a bit of a shock...
.. but bad puns aside, I was soon more excited about the day ahead of me.
I was the proud new owner of a new Peugeot for the day. After packing our safety gear, I got to drive me and my colleagues: Carlo, Ricky and Krzysztof to our site visit at Cambridge Drive in Potters Bar, North of London.

Its only about the second time that I have driven a car in the last six months, so I was very excited! I even had to navigate my way through one of those super roundabouts with mini roundabouts at each intersection... you know, those crazy ones they have over there!

We had a look around the site, namely at the tunnelling work they were undertaking in a large drive shaft, some metres below ground level as well as some of the other service alternations etc, before having lunch at a local cafe and making our way back to mighty High Wycombe.

I spent Thursday evening packing for Venice and baking up a storm of chocolate brownies, chocolate muffins and scones for work tomorrow, as I also had to prepare myself for saying goodbye to 24...
Just as I was about to get into bed at midnight, Leah and Irene burst into my room with a birthday cake, candles and party poppers singing "Happy Birthday"!!!

The three of us had to struggle our way through the whole cake plus a tub of Ben and Jerry's Dublin Mudslide Ice Cream (the best there is!) because we were all going to be away for the weekend! It was a lot harder to eat all of it than we thought, but eventually finished and went to bed all feeling rather sick.... perhaps thats a sign we're getting old(er)! ??

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