London Mark II

---

Welcome back to our blog - I'm a little slack on it right now, with all the wedding plans, and returning to work, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I'm getting there. I'm not sure how long this will all take me so I am sure you will get over it if these entries are a little slower than usual. I hope you enjoy them all the same - feel free just to check out the pictures and avoid my ramblings.

For those of you who don’t know, when I returned to New Zealand last year, I left Vaughan in London (he has a British passport), to continue working while I got set up back in New Zealand. It ended up being another 12 months before Vaughan had really had enough of London, and we decided to go on a bit of a tiki tour together, with me flying to meet him and then holidaying for 8 weeks before returning to New Zealand together. It was a mission to organise, but we managed to get it sorted out in the end. Now there’s just a wedding to finish organising - are we suckers for punishment or what? Here’s the lowdown of our trip, albeit perhaps more brief than some of my previous entries (I hear some of you breathing a sigh of relief), mostly due to the fact that I didn’t write any of this down and I’m just trying to remember it all off the top of my head.


Return to London

Sunday, 17th August

My flight to London was fine, although it was a bit of a mission flying directly, without a stopover, and by the time I arrived I had decided that it was the last time I’d bother to fly that far at once. It was fantastic to see Vaughan again at the airport, of course, and we went back to his flat in Kilburn, which was kind of cool, and also had a resident cat, Minnie. I met Vaughan’s flatmates Mikey (who owns the house) and Simon, who both seemed really nice and pleased to meet me. We went on a bit of a drive around Islington for a while to look at all the nice houses, but generally we just had a very easy day (it was a Sunday), with Vaughan cooking me dinner and then relaxing to watch the Olympics on TV.


Monday 18th - Wednesday 20th August

For the next few days, Vaughan was still working, and I had the house to myself a lot of the time. I just pottered around and it was kind of nice, walking down the road to the local shops for a look around, in the other direction to the other local shops for another look around (local shops are never far away in London), and generally just relaxing. Some of the nearby houses were really awesome, and I enjoyed just wandering around and looking (until I got lost, and then I just got pissed off). On the Monday night I was able to catch up with our friends Ash, Elke, Dave and Kath, and we all met in Ealing for a few drinks (our old stomping ground), before heading off to Southall, where we went to Rita’s for a wicked curry! I had never been there before, but it was fantastic - we ordered so much food it was ridiculous, and we all got to try a little bit of everything. It was madness, but exactly what I had missed about London (especially the curry - haha!), and it was great to catch up with everyone. My friend Sara was away on holiday in Australia (boo!), so she missed out on all the festivities - shame!

The next day it was more of the relaxing same - wander, shops, wander, park, wander, watch the Olympics. Ash came over to hang out with us at Vaughan’s place in the evening, which was awesome (nice effort Ash), and Vaughan cooked us dinner - yes, we survived! We just kind of mucked around but it was nice to relax and spend time with Ash, before missioning out in Vaughan’s work van for another tiki tour, this one apparently to a hill with a view of London (according to Ash), which was more like a small slope with not much of a view of anything from the top. Of course, we enjoyed hassling Ash regarding his interpretation of the word ‘hill’!

Wednesday saw the arrival of Rula from Birmingham, who was (and still is) on her own OE. It was really fantastic to see her across the other side of the world, and I was excited to show her some of the sights that I knew she would enjoy. Vaughan picked us up and took us on a wee tiki tour of some of the London sights, including Richmond Park and Kingston. That evening we took Rula out to a place I had been thinking of since leaving London - the Prince of Wales pub in Southall, where we ordered our usual mixed (Indian) grill. The wait proved well worth it, and with a few other kinds of dishes on the side, we all dug in - tandoori heaven! Ash and Kath managed to grace us with their presence yet again, which made the evening even better. Nice effort, friends!


Thursday, 21st August

The next day we were off - I took Rula to Camden markets first, via the tube. Being a market girl, I knew she would enjoy all the things on offer. Cheap clothes, jewellery, ethnic food, art, and much more. I have always really enjoyed it there myself, so it was great for me too, as we cruised around looking at all the random things. From there we ventured over to Bayswater and Kensington Gardens/Palace, where I showed Rula the best place to feed the squirrels in Winter, and to become a Crazy Squirrel Person. It was a really nice day and there were loads of people in the Gardens, just lying out in the sun, playing football, or walking their dogs. At the bottom of the park we turned towards Kensington High Street and had a look in heaps of shops - it was nice to have someone to go girly shopping with, and kind of just wander aimlessly with, feeling like a complete tourist in London again for the first time in ages. Rula was enthusiastic to see everything or just spend time doing whatever, and it was just really fun. We missioned over to Harrods and stuck our noses in the air for a while, pretending to be posh. Pity Rula was wearing a backpack on her front - we destroyed the illusion in about 2 seconds flat! We saw the pets, the Christmas Store (Rula’s favourite), the perfumes, the food market - heaps of stuff. It was pretty cool, and nice to get lost for a while amongst it all. When we were finished there we realised it was rush hour, and as the tube route back to Vaughan’s was incredibly indirect, we decided to take the bus (classy). We didn’t know which one to take so kind of just jumped on one going in the right direction - it was a double decker, and we had a good view from the top story. Surprisingly it wasn’t even busy, and the traffic wasn’t too bad. Even more surprisingly (and perhaps, miraculously) we had taken the exact bus that we needed (!!), which stopped just a couple of minutes walk from Vaughan place - sweet! We were quite tired when we got back, but had planned to go to Elke and Dave’s house in West Ealing for a BBQ. Ash was there again, and also Elke’s cousin Dean. We hung out there for a while, just talking, having a few drinks, and eventually playing on the Wii when we went inside. It was a really fun, relaxing time, although I think we stayed a bit late - we were all yawning by the time we made our escape home. Awesome guys - thanks for the hospitality!


Friday, 22nd August

Friday morning and I slept in, Vaughan went to work for his last day, and Rula wandered down the road to the hairdresser. We just kind of milled around heaps, then went out to the shops in Ealing, meeting Ash afterwards at the pub (nice effort Ash, if I didn’t say so earlier). It was really nice for me to be able to show Rula around the area we used to live. We headed back to Vaughan’s place (Vaughan had finished work) before heading off to a nearby pub to meet up with some of Rula’s ‘friends of friends’ from INZ London Branch. It wasn’t too bad, so we stayed for dinner, eventually leaving for the city so that Rula could see Leicester Square at night time. We were a bit worried that she would be disappointed (as not much is usually happening there unless there is a festival or something), but it was a Friday night so we were a little hopeful. On our arrival we could see the Leicester Square theatres (the Empire and the Odeon) all lit up, with quite a few people around, and it looked better than anticipated, so that was kind of cool. We messed around in a red phone box so Rula could get some photos and stuff, and then went for a walk through Chinatown and Soho. No cheap buffets this time though! We finally made it home - phew, what a full-on few days!


Saturday, 23rd August

The next morning we jumped up and ventured off to Brighton in the van (Rula, Vaughan and myself) - luckily it was a beautiful day out there, and the drive went really quickly. We listened to some NZ music on the way, and were in a fine mood by the time we arrived. Rula got to see the pier (we had already been to Brighton - see my earlier blog entry), and we just kind of wandered around the waterfront for a couple of hours, looked at the rides, got some lunch, played some gallery games, took photos, looked at the ocean, ate icecream - the usual. We had a quick walk to look at the outside of the Brighton Pavilion and then decided it was time for home - on the way back to the van we saw several groups of ‘Mod’ scooters and ‘Rocker’ motorbikes, all in fantastic condition - it seems British tradition is not dead in Brighton! On the way back we travelled to the other side of London to show Rula where Windsor castle was, although we didn’t go inside as it was getting a bit late. We had a wee wander around the small town (it’s really nice) and then stopped off briefly at Eaton College. Soon we were on our way again, headed for Vaughan’s place. He whipped up a great dinner for us all, and we just laxed out for the rest of the evening - sweet!


Sunday, 24th August

Sunday saw Vaughan and I head off on a mission of our own - a surprise trip from Vaughan (for me) to the Reading Music Festival, which actually runs for 3 days (with campgrounds for people to stay in and stuff), although we just had tickets to the final day. Reading is about an hour or so outside London, so we drove up in the van, found a park, walked forever to the venue, and made it inside. I was surprised that the venue wasn’t as large as I had expected, especially for the amount of people attending. There was a lot of sound bleed between the stages, so the music was at a lower volume (so as not to interfere with the other stages). However, there was still a lot of cool stuff to see - all kinds of food stalls, bits and bobs (fake tattoos, energy drinks, balloons, face painting, etc) and merchandise for sale, so we just wandered around for a while, getting an idea of the layout of all the marquees and stages. The main stage was pretty cool, in a massive wide-open area, with several large screens and loads of speaker stacks. There was also a smaller band shell, and two large marquees (the dance tent and the NME tent), although the marquees weren’t really big enough to hold the crowds they contained, and people often ended up standing outside. It was pretty cramped inside, especially with people jumping around, so I kind of liked the outdoors areas much better, where there was even space to sit down and rest your feet for a while if you wanted to. We ventured from stage to stage, catching various acts, buying energy drinks and food, and just kind of people-watching (after 3 days of camping, some of the all-weekend people were pretty skanky and made for interesting conversation!). Over at the main stage we eventually caught Tenacious D, who did more than just sing but basically entertained the crowd with antics for quite a while - it was really amusing, and they were quite impressive live, especially considering the complexity of some of their Spanish-type guitar solos! Hehe! The closing act of the festival was Metallica, and the main reason Vaughan had bought us tickets (although I like Tenacious D much better). They were certainly impressive to see live - an experience than many die-hard fans will not have in their lifetime. It was getting dark and everyone just went into overdrive, but being in the main area where there was more room, it wasn’t very mosh-like or scary, which it could have been, since there were about 35,000 people there (no kidding!). Everyone looked to be having a really good time, and it was good to see Vaughan really enjoying himself too. Metallica were obviously very experienced at live performances and they had a great stage presence. It was a great finale to the day/weekend, and we eventually headed out with the daytime crowd and made the trip back to London (getting lost on the way). When we got back we hung out with Mikey for a little while (Vaughan’s flatmate), but we were quite tired. It had been a big day!



Monday, 25th August

Monday arrived and I was excited because the Notting Carnival was on, as I had missed it every year while living in London. It’s a yearly two-day carnival which celebrates the best of the Caribbean, basically, with loads of floats, music, dancing, costumes, music and food (and alcohol). Vaughan’s place was within close walking distance of Notting Hill, and Ash turned up to join us. We waited around for Elke and Dave as well, but they couldn’t make it in the end (lazy bums!), so we had a few drinks first and then headed off towards the cordoned float route, which was about 10 minutes walk away. On the way we passed so many cops, Caribbean jerk-chicken stalls, drunk people, crazy people, costumed people, front-yard mini-parties and various random stuff. We came over the rise and suddenly we were there - the music from the floats was sooooo loud, with thundering drums and smoke and chaos everywhere - it was fantastic. I couldn’t believe how many people there were and it was really intense (so maybe not for everyone), but I loved every second of it. Rula was also stoked to have made it to London randomly in time to catch the festival, and we took loads of photos before establishing a mini-base on the grass (so that we could come and go, have a boogie on the roadside with the people from the floats, eat, drink, have a break, etc). We all kind of had turns up by the floats as they went past and it was loads of fun. There were so many people that the floats could only move slowly, so after about an hour we had only seen 2 floats go past, but it was awesome and the costumes were fantastic! We decided to walk along the float route and got to see a few more, but there were so many people that it was hard work getting through the crowds. We weren’t deterred though, and people were in such high spirits that it didn’t matter, and you could pretty much make friends with anyone around you on the way. We stopped off for some jerk chicken (tasty!) and ventured down this one long street in the middle of the float route that had been turned into a food alley - it was crazy to see a posh suburban neighbourhood, with temporary stalls and kiosks outside every house. Some of them were official, but loads of people just ran their own, even just sitting outside selling cans of beer from a cooler and watching people go by (these drink-sellers were everywhere, not just on this street). All of this combined plus the food smells and the smoke from the jerk chicken (and the rubbish), made the street seem so completely different from what it must be like when the carnival isn’t on. It was starting to get dark and we started the trek towards home - often it is not safe to be out after dark when the carnival is on, and we didn’t want to take any risks. We were shattered, but had such a fantastic time. I was so glad I went, and that I got to spend the day there with Vaughan, Ash and Rula. Another successful day - thanks guys!

Roll on Tuesday, and our exit from the UK to Paris, via the Eurostar…….

---