Thursday 30

Countdown!!!! 15 days til easter!!! yay I know I am excited for all the wrong reasons, but that means only 2 weeks and 1 day until chocolate. It was my student's last day today and he bought me peppermint creme chocolate which i am not sure where he found it because it is very hard to come across here...... now i have to sit it onthe mantlepiece and listen to it call my name. Maybe i should lock it in a draw.

It is nearly the weekend at last, we are going to Birmingham to see nanny, so if any of the parentals would like to speak to us that is where we will be - call us on sunday morn :) (yes mum i know i said that last weekend - but we have our tickets booked this week).

Netball was a little bit better this week, although i think that i need new shoes because my feet, knees and hips are killing me. We don't play on the best surface that is for sure. It is bitumen and gets very slippy in the rain.

What do i like most about London so far?? Pounds, krispy kremes, natural history museum....

What do dislike most about London so far? The tube!!!!! It is amazing how seemingly upstanding citizens become nothing more than hungry cattle offered food. They just push and push and push and it is everyman for himself and no consideration for anyone else. I have never seen anything like it! But i guess it is all part of this country's charm.

okeydoke
chat later

Another quick update

Hello again people,

As you might notice the blog has had a little face lift. I've given it a fresh coat of paint to try and lighten it up a tad. You've got the shortened gallery list as I mentioned before, you've got the random musings on the right, and you've also got brand spanky new images for the banner. So far I've done only three images but it will cycle through them randomly. Hope you all like it!

Anyway, that enough from me - make sure you read gems post below.

Night kids.
Duncan.

When it rains it pours..... yes literally!!! Tuesday 28 March

Well hello all.

Yes I got absolutely positively soaked on my way home from work today. I had an umbrella with me (yes I have learnt never to leave the house without an umbrella), which was of little use when the rain was coming at all directions. :)

Last week was pretty quiet. Another day another dollar (pound). We all played apallingly on Tuesday night at netball, but as they say there is always next week (which happens to be tonight in the rain).

Friday night Duncan and I went out to a little Italian restaurant near us to celebrate his new job. It was lovely and very Italian. Poker was in full force when we got back to the house, Kerry cleaned up once again. I lost the remainder of one guy's chips when he had to go out and left me in charge of them.... oops!

Saturday night we went into Soho for a friend of Sara's birthday drinks. The weather is much warmer than it was when we first arrived so we get to go out without so many layers. There was a lot of gay men there and they said that I looked 'fabulous darling' ;)

Sunday after getting up ridiculously early to watch a depressing defeat in the Commonwealth Games netball, we celebrate the beginning of Daylight Savings with our first bbq of the season. We had quite a crowd (Luke and Bel came to join us) and of course it rained!!! But it was a really good afternoon.

So yes, there is now only 7 hours difference, instead of 8. Feel free to give us a call :)

It's Dunc's last week at TfL this week, and they are very sad to see him go, and have invited him to come back any time.

We are off to Birmingham this weekend, to see nannie, and i think i might need to get a new pair of trousers to wear to work. The fly is gone in mine so I am securing them with a safety pin - mum, i miss you!!

Mum and Sonia, you will be impressed to hear i cooked a delicious hot Chille Con Carne on Monday night, atop baked potatoes with a side of carrot & swede mash, and spinach salad. I know I know it is impressive :)

Ciao, talk to you all later

love
Gem

blog update

Just a quick update here to let you know a small update to he blog. I have reduced the galleries down to a short list but you can still see the whole list if you click on the "view all galleries" link. I've also put in a few random musings too lower down on the right-hand side... Stay tuned for more galleries (yes Dad they are coming) and possibly also a fresh new look.

New Job!

Right, its confirmed. I have a new job!

My contract with Transport for London was set to end on the 31st of March but they did want me to stay on. TfL has a bad habit of nearly always extending contracts, but never actually doing it until about 1 hour before its set to end. Anyhoo, my manager at Tfl wasn't able to increase her head-count of staff, but she was able to get in people from one of her suppliers to help in times of high work load... which is happening now. Go figure.... massive government organisations seem to breed this sort of stupid bureaucracy. Anyway, Caroline (the manager) was trying to get me and another contractor into the ranks of her supplier so that they can essentially "supply" us back to her and we keep our jobs. This was all fine but I know that the other contractor is on a higher rate than me and I tried to get them to put mine to the same as his. Apparently they didn't have the money but it was worth a try. Anyway, this all seems to be going along ok and TfL is a good job but it is sort of dull. Very very simple, and slack hours, but dull. So with 2 weeks left of my contact I started to look around knowing that I'll always have TfL as a good backup.

I had a prospect with a marketing company in Hammersmith, but the manager there doesn't need someone right away so they haven't even set up interviews yet. Then one came up for another marketing company in London Bridge. Its a bit further out but not too much. I went to an interview on Friday and it went pretty good. They have some pretty big clients such as Nestle and Hasbro (the toy company - such as Action Man, My Little Pony and K-Nex) so it would look good on a resume too. I the arvo I got a call saying they would like me to join them so I have 1 week left of TfL and then I start with them. They are called JPMH http://www.jpmh.co.uk. Good news? When I got there for my interview most people filed out past me as some one was leaving... and they all headed down the pub. Good start!

Anyway, I'll keep you informed on how it goes.

Also, there is a new gallery on the right. I have done another but its not in chronological order so you'll have to wait. I'll do more tomorrow.

kthanxbye.
Me.

Shhhh

Here's a teaser for you.... I might have a new job... shhhh.

I'll keep you all posted.

Sunday 19 March

Well so ends my first full week at my new job. So far it is quite good and interesting, certainly nice to be allowed to treat patients again. The travel is a bit of a drag, but it does provide me with some reading time.... i bought Tolstoy's War and Peace for 1 pound the other day so I have started reading that.

Tuesday night netball was a bit disappointing this week, everyone on both my teams seemed a little bit flat. We just could not get it together. But it was fun and it was exercise, although it will never fail to amaze me that the coldest night of every week is almost alway Tuesday night.

Speaking of the weather according to the locals, it is being a bit strange (as it seems to be all over the world). Apparently the weather is supposed to be a bit warmer at this time of year and a bit drier. Well Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings while i was walking to work it was cold and snowing. And by snowing i mean pitiful excuses for snowflakes that have practically melted before they hit the ground. Nevertheless it is apparently not a typical weather pattern, and we are just keeping our fingers crossed that one day the sun will come out.... (In all honesty the sun is out at the moment and i am sitting on the staircase with the cats, in a sunny patch)

Friday was St Pats day, and after many attempts to get to Dublin to celebrate we decided that we would celebrate it in London instead. It is actually pretty big here. As the Brits don't celebrate St George's day (not even with a public holiday) they jump on the St Pats band wagon and why not. We went to a small Irish pub walking distance from our house where the boys drank guiness and i sampled Magners Irish Cider. We befriended some Irish people called Noreen and Mick who actually knew where Perth was and have been there and who taught me some Iris jigging. All in all it was a good night. Sponge (Andy) left early without telling us, but it is no wonder that he didn't remember to tell us, because the next morning he didn't even remember leaving.... :)

On Saturday we went to La Dolce Vita as Italian expo at Olympia where we sample cheese and salami and breads and pesto and pasta sauces mmmmm, we didn't do any vino sampling because in true London style the queues for the wine tasting were chaos. So instead we went to the travel sections to get ideas on our Italy travel.

We went baby sitting last night (Saturday night) for a couple who own a film company. One of their kids was away so we just watched the end of Grease and then Charlie and the Chocolate factory on their very nice plasma screen, with their daughter. The people were very nice and the house was amazing.

So another week has passed us by, unfortunately not a lot of intersting stuff to report, have a good week everybody :)

London Weather

Not sure what the weather is like where ever you are but today in London its trying hard to snow. Not much is falling and it certainly isn't piling on the ground but it is definately snowing. I like snow. I like sun too and sort of miss that, I think its big and yellow but its been a while so my memory could be fuzzy, but I miss snow like in Canada.

March 12: Last week in a nutshell

Saturday: We did some more touristy stuff today. We met Luke and Belinda and went to the Camden Town Markets, and lets just say they are a little bit bigger than the Freo Markets. They mainly have arts and crafts, clothes and antiques. And although they had a lot of take away food there wasn't a lot of fresh produce and stuff. It was awesome to walk around. The people watching opportunities were quite good too. Being the kind of markets that they were there was such an eclectic mix, with the most noticeable being punks. Yes men in skirts with bright pink tights, docs and bright pink hair did stand out in the crowd. Still being on a "paying off all our debts" budget we didn't buy much except a bright green velvet jacket for St Pats Day (at that stage we were still heading to Ireland to visit Fiona from Sri Lanka for st Pats day) and a hat. Oh and Dunc bought some guitar strings as Andy has a guitar that had no strings and Dunc thought that he might want to play. We went to Picadilly Circuis after the markets to check out the world reknowned neon lighting and then walked through the red light district to SoHo where we had yummy dinner.

Sunday: We re-examined our budget and decided that St Pats would have to wait til next year. Not just for money reasons, but i didn't feel it would be right to take a day off in my first week of work on my new job.

Monday: Began my last week at work :( It really did feel like I had been working there for ages.

Tuesday: Netball - played 2.5 games this week. Won one, Lost one, drew one. Our mixed team is a little akin to the Dockers. We come out all guns blazing in the first half gaining a nice healthy lead, then drop our bundle and lose in the second half. Oh well we can only get better. After netball I made lamington cake. Without a mixer and with an oven whose knob as fallen off, so the actual temperature is anyone's guess. But suprisingly the cake turned out ok.

Wednesday: My second last day at work. Afterwards I iced the lamingtons. They didn't turn out too badly - at least my housemates thought so anyway, i was beginning to wonder whether i woul actually get them to work on Thursday.

Thursday: My last day at work. Fortunately one of my new years resolutions was to be more organised, and so far i have actually managed to keep it, so i didn't have anywork left to do on Thursday...... I had accomplished it all. This meant that I could induct the new girl and socialise. We had afternoon tea which was lovely, and my lammies were a big success. Work had bought me and all signed a lovely card. I wa actually very sad to go as i had made some good friends there. That night I spent the evening preparing for my first day as a real physio. The job is in Croyden so i needed to work out the best way to get out there, how long it was going to take etc, and get everything organised because it was going to be an early start. Duncan finally caught up with Daron (of Daron & Kim) - over coffee in town.

Friday: Well I thought that I was going to be a bit rusty and be completely overwhelmed with the prospect of having to do real work again. But I wasn't. It was actually good to be back. I am working in the "Emergency Admissions Unit" which is sort of part of the emergency departmet but for patients who require longer than an emergency department admission, but probably don't require a hospital admission. So it is quite acute. Theoretically patients are not supposed t be on the ward longer than 72 hours. Ha Ha there are patients that have been there for 3 weeks. My job is a lot of assessment, liaising with medical staff to determine whether discharge is appropriate or whether admission is required; exercise prescription etc etc.
It took me ~1 hour and 15 minutes commute time, which really isn't that bad. At least when you are not driving you can read your book or have a sleep.

Saturday: Myself Kerry (one of my house mates) and Leena (a friend from my old work) went to Kings Cross to the Nike Women Rockstar Live workshop. This was very fun, although thoroughly exhausting. 45minutes of Sol (with a high latin influence) + 45 minutes of Hip hop plus 25 minutes of Krumping (the newest form of dancing out at the moment). It was an excellent physical and mental workout. The routines were choreographed by "Jamie King" who does all of Madonna's stuff as well as Brittney, JLo etc.

Sunday: I feel suprisingly well today, considering that yesterday i could not actually move off the couch for three hours :). No plans for today. The boys are all watching the cricket and then the rugby.....

The weather has not changed all that much, it is still cold and we had quite a bit of rain last week. I never thought that I would miss sun so much. At least in Canada it was cold but the sun was out all the time.

Well this has been a rather large nut..... probably something more like a coconut. Keep in touch. Remember if any of our fans out there would like to drop us a line, your local post office or newsagency should be able to recommend a calling card (i saw some online for rates around 2c a minute) which allows you to call for much cheaper. Just try and get one without a connection fee and "line maintenance charge". If you dont have our number just drop us an email or our parents have it.

Also Duncan and I would like to send our thoughts and prayers to Aunty Alice, Allan, Richard, Helen and families and mum after the passing of Uncle Richard......

As for everyone else: stay happy and healthy and you'll hear from us soon

New Gallery

Well its been a while but I've finally done a gallery. It only our pre-london life but its a start. We have lik 250+ photos to go through since we got here so be patient. Hopefully I'll do more tomorrow.

Anyway, hope you are all well. Speak soon!
Duncan.

March 3: Food for thought

Well this week has been a busy one.

Tuesday was of course pancake tuesday, i did not have any pancakes but began to think about upcoming lent and what i would give up.

For those heathen non-Catholics among our readers Lent is the period before Easter when you are supposed to sacrifice something. Why? I am not really sure..... but i have decided to give up chocolate and chips (crisps) - I can hear you all laughing at me now!!! But put the betting books away because i am determined to do it :)

Oh and by the way - I got a real job!!! Perhaps that should have been prioritised a little higher on the list than the chocolate, but anyway. It is a south London Hospital called Mayday University Hospital, I will be working in the Emergency Assessment Unit in the Emergency Department, still not 100% sure what i will be doing but it is a Physiotherapy job and it sounds interesting, and I am in the emergency departmetn so will hopefully get to see some cool/interesting stuff. The only down side is that it is quite a trek from where we are living, but this is the price you pay for getting your foot in the door.

So here is some food for thought....... As I am leaving my current job there will (as always) be a morning tea and here is what i want to know: Does choclate cake count as chocolate.... because it doesn't actually contain chocolate just cocoa which granted is an ingredient of chocolate couldn't be called chocolate. Because if chocolate cake does not count as chocolate then i can request it for my morning tea :)

Take care every one
love
Geema Rani (Leena my token British Asian (Or BrAsian) friend gave me my Indian name it means Gemma my Queen :)

PS Leena told me to explain to you all that Asian in UK means Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan etc and those that we would think of as being Asian are in fact Oriental.....)

PPS Gordo and Radford: I am sooooo excited that you guys are coming over, you can come and stay with us for a little while... while you are getting sorted. Woohoo!!!!