London Life Update since December

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Well, life in London has been going along smoothly. It's been forever since I wrote in this thing, and I hate that - I've forgotten already so much of what was done and said etc that unfortunately many gaps will be left unfilled. Given that, the things that have stuck with me are obviously important, so bonus for that I guess.

So last time I wrote, Carl was here in November, I was just about finished in the Treasury Office at Guy's Hospital photocopying invoices in the dusty store room where the guy freaked me out. The guy was just a random guy in the office who never spoke to me, until I started downstairs in the store room; after that he kept coming down to talk to me, asked me out at one stage, we had coffee, it was awkward and not right and definitely not what I expected to happen. Had to have Carl come rescue me from that just so I could get away. Thankfully that was over and I haven't seen him again.

We then embarked on our trip around Europe: 8 days in Ireland with Mayim, then two nights in Copenhagen, two nights in Amsterdam, two in Brussels and two in Bruges, and five in Paris. I'm going to list each of those places in separate entries, this entry is just about what's been going on in London. I'll include Christmas and Scotland in separate entries, so be prepared for a lot of reading!!

Anyway, after leaving Scotland for New Year's, Carl headed on to Italy and I went back to work. Despite having called my main agency two weeks in advance to tell them I'd be free from the 7th January for work for a relatively long period of time, they did not find me anything, so I resorted again to my housemate's boyfriend's agency, and he managed to find me work within a day and a half (very interesting phone conversation over breakfast in Scotland!). The job was an administrative secretary to the Living Donor team in the Renal Department again at Guy's Hospital. It was an office job, lots of typing and filing etc, and I loved it, absolutely adored it. I worked with some amazing nurses - Lisa Burnapp, Consultant Nurse for the Living Donor team, and Madeline Woods and Isobel Gordon, two Sisters in the living donor team. They are honestly some of the nicest people I have ever met, very genuine, caring, wonderfully strong women and I will be so sad when I have to leave the Renal Department for good. I worked as the Living Donor secretary for about four months, and in that time, managed to complete a lot of odd jobs for Lisa and the girls that had got pushed aside over the last year or so, and I think this made them very grateful. I've learnt lots about kidneys and met some really cool people! I doubt they'll be lifelong friends, go out for drinks and coffee all the time, because they are very different and most are a bit older than I am, but I will definitely keep in touch with them and hopefully catch up from time to time.

Anyway, when Elisabeth returned to work, the team there did not want to let me go. Elisabeth was coming in on a graduated return, so for awhile, we were both doing the same job and doing a rather extended handover, until they found somewhere they could slot me into. A couple of weeks ago, I was ready to quit - there seemed to be nowhere I wanted to go that they wanted to slot me into (there were a few positions coming up but I wasn't really interested in taking any of them as they wouldn't give me the flexibility I needed to travel) and I was doing nothing all day every day. Then I was pulled aside and asked if I'd be interested in PA'ing for the Matrons of the Renal Department. This was near perfect - I wanted to extend my skills, and I wanted to take a different PA position that didn't end up coming up, it meant I could stay in the department, would not be treading on Elisabeth's toes anymore, and could earn some more money while I'm at it. So I began that role on the 7th of April - still very new at it, it hasn't quite kicked off as a few of the Matron's have been away on leave and are not used to having PA that works well for them and have been a bit reluctant to give me stuff. But hopefully, when I get back from my next holiday (leaving on the 22nd April), I can get into it a bit more and gain some experience.

So that's the work front.

Not a whole lot else has been happening in London - I've been trying to catch up with the girls from FSI with no luck, and also with Tim, a friend from high school who lives over here and is going home soon, also to no avail. I've been spending a few weekends drinking with my housemates, which has been fun and debaucherous as it well should be. Speaking of housemates, there's been a few changes - there's two Kiwi's and four Aussie's now. There have been a few hiccups along the way - Danny grew tired and sick of the house, and left on bad terms, but is now happy somewhere in Wimbledon. Kylie moved out to go back to Australia to obtain her Ancestry Visa, and has since moved back to London to live with her boyfriend. Mick left on rather sad terms as he couldn't get a Visa to sponsor him to stay in London - and a week after he'd made the decision to leave, he met a lovely girl and didn't want to leave, so I feel very badly for him. So our house now consists of two teachers, Luke and Dereck, three admin temps, myself, Tallulah and Catherine, and Matt, who should be glass decorating, went into glazing and is now installing shower screens. And it's much fun! We all get on quite well and spend lots of time together. I'm even travelling with Catherine and Tallulah, and it's awesome to have built in travel-buddies! We have some issues with our landlord not fixing our leaking roof, and the heating has now gone off so the house is FREEZING. But liveable!

Went out on the weekend for some fun - caught up with Kylie for drinks on Friday night and ended up meeting up with her boyfriend nearby, where I proceeded to make friends with a whole bunch of random architects that were sitting next to me. Not a fun bus ride home alone after that, and quite ill the next morning (yesterday), but a worthwhile night nonetheless. Last night was a few drinks around in our living room with Sahara, someone I used to work with back in Melbourne, who has moved over here, and although she had a rocky start, things are now looking up for her, and we've got some travel plans in the works too. Have met her friends, Ian, who came out with us for a night of gay dancing in Camden's The Black Cap (gay bar), had a great time there, and have met Andy, the guy she was staying with when she first came here. The only other big night of note was our houseparty, which we had on the 29th March to celebrate Dereck's birthday! It was a great night, and the carnage the next morning was totally worth it. Everyone was lovely, nobody stole anything or trashed anything, good music played, drink flowed, and we all made new friends.

It's snowed twice - once at Easter, very briefly for a couple of days, but very cool - a White Easter!!! I had the whole house to myself at Easter, as everyone was away on travel plans, and I jumped around like a mad woman when it started snowing. Unfortunately no photos, because the ones on my phone didn't turn out, and I did not have my camera as it was being repaired in Aus. Then it snowed again a couple of weeks later, on the 6th April - and the snow stuck!!! Our backyard turned into a white blanket, it was lovely to be woken up to snow and to just watch it falling out my window. Very pleased! Easter was very cool, as my parents had sweetly thought to send me some Easter eggs, so I wasn't forgotten! Lovely to watch tv, eat some chocolate and have it snow outside. Perfect!

So the next big plans are this: I'm leaving on Tuesday 22 April to head over to Turkey for an ANZAC tour, Istanbul - Gallipli for the 25 April. This is going to be amazing, and I am very much looking forward to that. I then fly from Turkey to Cairo, and spend nine days travelling up Egypt on a Felucca, and I'm looking forward to seeing all that Egypt has to offer as well. Then back to the PA work, and planning a few more trips - Budapest hopefully in June, Prague in July with Catherine (booked), August my parents join me over here for some travelling and we may head out to Leeds and to Lakes District, heading to Greece in September with Tallulah and Catherine, somewhere white for Christmas, London for New Year's, and possibly Cuba in January. Very exicting times! For now, I will reflect on some travel I've done, so stay tuned for some random stories to follow.

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