13 months later.. A girl about town

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It took 13 months and a injured jaw, but I am now officially a Londoner.. I can’t smile, I don’t talk to anyone and I enjoy a liquid lunch!!

On my 365th day, I was told I to drop the tourist act and step up to localisation! So the last few months I haven’t left a surface of London untouched.. Acting as a tour guide to friends from high school, I’ve met Prince Michael of Kent in my first royal meeting, eaten curry in the Curry Mile - the no. 1 British dish, played softball and picnicked in Hyde Park, even evacuated to bomb threats and finally had reason claim back some of the Nation Insurance I’ve been giving the Government with on every pay check and experience the joys of the NHS!! Could I be any more local?!

On my way back from Barcelona, I was invited by Christine and James to their re-opening of their restaurant Uno in Pimlico. They had done a beautiful job of refurbishing it all, creating a fabulous new space downstairs including a glass floor looking down on the cellar, surprisingly still filled!! Out the front, they even had their own branded rickshaws, and riders in cute little suits with umbrella’s out for us at the door!

It gave me a lot to think about as I came back to a very busy and exciting time at work, with the launch of our Russian Desk, and guest of honour Prince Michael of Kent. Thinking very Russian, it was all about the designer labels, fancy vodka bar and ignoring the snob factor as the talked over and above themselves about their enormous success since arriving in England.. It was certainly a new pressure that we hadn’t felt before as our market in Mayfair and Knightsbridge is over 80% Russian and we needed to keep up their image and impress!

The very next week, we had a development team from Miami, and much more fun and innovative concept which was all about sharp, crisp and glam properties over £5.5 million, but don’t be worried, they include a 24 hour Bentley chauffeur services, private pools to each floor and a 360° view over the Florida coast.. I thought I might take two!

Entertaining the clients through the week and running the events themselves, went very well and I had a lot of fun with their Arts Director Yvonne, who was very involved in Kabbalah and peoples spirits and chi! Fascinating, and very spiritually aware, I must give it to her, she was able to read most of our office straight away as much as I did giggle at it all! But no spiritual balance or chi was going to help me with the troubles that would be left behind.. Their next destination was Moscow, and I found myself negotiating with cash as if I was a part of the Mafia, just trying to get their promotional materials and 300kg model safely to their next destination.. So it was with great relief when I got word it had arrived just in time to the long weekend and Princess (self proclaimed) Juliet’s birthday!

Turning 24, Jules had never had a birthday party, and she intended to spend each day making up for it celebrating “Me, Me, Me, Me”!! Starting with a night out Friday at a favorite haunt, Kingly Club and onto Kaberet only hours before waking up to Starbucks and Krispy Kreams at an all day leadership course with Hillsong, then all scrubbing back up and heading out to dinner at the Carnaby Hotel! I haven’t eaten that well since leaving Mum in Amsterdam, but I did nearly fall into my soup in exhaustion!! I’m not nearly as young as I used to be!! By Sunday we were all exhausted, but after Church the party spirit kicked back in and we gathered across the road for yet another set of cake, candles and champagne before the planned finally picnic the following day in Hyde Park.. In the air of celebrating, we neglected to monitor the rain forecast, and it would have taken our best wellies to get us there with dry toes, so Princess Jules ever so kindly declared it a day of rest!!

Monday morning I received a text message from Clyde inviting me out to see Pirates of the Carribean, which, with his permission, I passed on to a few friends, and he passed on to a few friends, and by the time we met at 3:30 we had 55 seats booked.. It was fantastic!! I was really excited to see what a wide network of friends I had made, but going back to work I certainly wasn’t feeling at all refreshed leading back into another big and exciting time at work!

And as soon as Tuesday morning arrived, I was begging for Friday, when I received an office wide email advertising a Canadian development launch on the same dates as an upcoming PR event of our Princes Trust, Diamonds and Champagne Auction. It was no fault of mine that someone had gone ahead and orgainised on their own a date, spent £50,000 on advertising without any approval and promised clients a location without checking, but I knew that it was going to be all on me to sort it.. It made for a very frustrating and draining fortnight, as the argument was that one event would result in sales and income, and another would only involve press.. My frustration is that one event had been worked on for 3 months, another event hadn’t even told anyone it was happening and just expected it to all appear!! Grr!! So it was resolved by convincing our Canadian clients that our office wasn’t nearly large or plush enough for their development and so we put them up in Claridges instead, which of course was completely blown when they saw the office being set up that day and led to a big barnie, which was completely out of my control.. But hey!!

Just when I felt like I needed another holiday, Andrew, Steve and Avinash were in town, but not before Trudi, Erin and I snuck out to The Sound of Music Sing-A-Long.. My first time of seeing the film, and I loved it!! Maybe it was the drag queen host, the number of nuns in the audience or the pieces of carpet we had to wave to the little red bouncy ball on the screen.. It was such a dorky, but fun night! We’re hopping the next one will be Rocky Horror.. And next time we’ll dress up!!

Since downgrading to my mini-pad, I wasn’t able to house all the boys, which had me feeling terribly guilty until they told me that had booked into the Mayfair Hilton! Sounded like I was going to be sleeping on their couch!! Taking a Monday off from work to play tour guide, we spent the 3 days of covering every single inch, and I don’t kid, of the city and it all kicked off with a very real London experience.. Getting stuck in a Bomb Threat!

Saturday we met at Bond St just in time for the Gay Pride Parade.. I completely forgot that it was that weekend, but I don’t think poor Steve will! Three boys, one girl.. Only one could get away with holding my hand, and it was all a little too much for them, so we snuck into a restaurant for lunch while the crowds passed before planning a full afternoon of shopping on the first weekend of the sales! I don’t know if they forgot they were in pounds and not dollars, a lot of money was spent and they had such a ball!!

All very label conscious, they were in heaven in Selfridges, but it was Harrods that hit the spot! I think it was were the most photo’s were taken, they just couldn’t believe that it was a store and after over 7 hours of non-stop spending we stopped for cream tea and Harrods special crepes powering us up for a night out, where again the boys were confronted with the crowds of Pride weekend, slightly cramping their style!

Sunday was the first day of the smoking ban, and we started the day with smoke free pub grub and penciled out our route, walking through Buckingham Palace, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Leiscter Square, Trafalgar Square, down through Parliament and outside Dowling Street to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and onto The London Eye.. Still not stopping we walked down to London Bridge, Tower Bridge and over to Tower of London where I finally convinced the boys to get on a tube and we headed out for dinner at Canary Wharf where we still weren’t done heading home via St Pauls and Big Ben by night.. It was over 14 hours later that we got home, exhausted, but successful in seeing everything plus more that was on their list!

Monday, Avinash and Stephen were heading out to a holiday in Dubai, while Andrew still had one more day in London before heading out to Greece. After the exhaustion of the previous two days, and the miserable rain, it was much more relaxed day of slow wandering, having tea in Hyde Park and catching up with photo’s from home over an early dinner before Andrew headed out to Heathrow.

The very next day was a celebration of 365 days since I since I stepped off the plane and landed in London.. And I survived!! So where else to celebrate, but at the local pub dressed up in bobby hats!!

It did bring up a few issues though the evening.. I was still yet to eat a curry, Britan’s number one dish (?) and I had never played softball in Hyde Park!

Friends from Hillsong were quick to take on the first challenge and took me down to the Curry Mile, on Brick Lane, where we where hackled by salesmen outside each of their restaurants stretching out the entire row! We settled where we were offered 30% off, no service charge, bottle of wine for the ladies and a pint of beer each for the boys on the house! Not bad, I can certainly see the attraction, as we left with very full bellies and it cost less than a tenner each!

That same week Vacherin, the catering company that I am contracted through, were offering the second, a staff Picnic and Softball charity game in Hyde Park!

Trudi and I left Hamptons in our sports get-up and fabulous AUS shirt that arrived that very day in the mail from my little cousin Em, representing the team.. Boy did we represent!! Trudi took a fantastic tumble, where she actually managed to bounce, I got a few great hits in before being caught out and taking position on the field as photographer behind the batsman, little did I know how dangerous spectating could be until one of the hard hitting chefs got smart and swung the ball around, flying 3 meters behind him into my jaw!! OUCH!!

Thank-fully Mum was able to pull some strings all the way from Melbourne, and made sure I was looked after privately, after the NHS not only mis-read my x-rays, they diagnosed them back to front, and treated my right side from what they saw on my left.. Hmm.. Just in time for Stuart’s visit, a family friend who I haven’t caught up with in over 3 years, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of talking that I could do, in fact I couldn’t talk at all, so after telling me all about what he was up too on his 6 month travels round the world over chew free soup, we gave up and headed to see Harry Potter in the infamous Odeon of Leicster Square, completing 2 months of absolute Englishness!!

But until we get my jaw sorted out, I’m live from a friends couch catching up on all your worldly news, as I’m off work, keeping my mouth shut and eating through a straw!!

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