Back in London 19 -30 March

Well I started back in London in fine form, didn't get out of bed for most of the day, I don't think that I even left the house - nope I didn't, i ordered pizza delivered.

I started back at St George's on the Tuesday, in a different area which is a little bit more interesting. Played netball and won and apart from that it was a very low key week.

The weekend was particularly exhilarating as i worked at The Harley Street. But a nice suprise was that Magnus and Nicole popped round for a visit, so we ordered pizza that evening. We were supposed to go to Sam's b'day afterwards but I was feeling rubbish so we didn't.

Sunday Duncan went to Birmingham for some geeky computer course. He left me a lone all week. Well till Tuesday anyway when he drove back for "Monty Python's Spamalot - The musical" What can I say about this theatrical masterpiece other than this...... Duncan liked it! No no I liked it too but it was a little strange. Afterwards Dunc drove back to Solihull and I went home.

Wednesday and Thursday seemed to fly by I started my French lessons (on the computer) and finished booking the holiday with mum and dad. I intended to go to the gym, but didn't quite get there, i did do some walking though.

Duncan finally came back last night, and now I am whole again (please note the sarcasm :) Seriously though it is good to have him back.

It has continued to snow in Bulgaria...... tch tch tch that would be right.

Well that will be it for now. Will be back later

Love you all.

Bulgaria: Saturday 10 - Sunday 18 March

Well what can I say..... I did the unthinkable.... I nearly didn't make it to Bulgaria!!! Why I hear you ask... well that might be something to do with me forgetting my passport.......

The story really begins in the early hours of Thursday morning. Duncan was going on his work ski trip to Austria and was up at 3am. Whilst I was trying to sleep through his raquet I could have sworn I heard him say he was going to take both passports with him 'just in case'. So I went back to sleep and thought nothing more of it until the weekend.

Friday night I came home after my first full week at my new job (St Georges Hospital in A&E) very tired and still having to pack and get to Luke and Belinda's. I packed my stuff checked the passport holder for the passport grabbed the snowboard bag and lugged everything downstairs to wait for the mini cab. It arrived and charged me na extra fiver for the snowboard bag, he said that i should have ordered a bigger car to fit the snowboard and that that would cost an extra 5 quid. I said but the car fits the snowboard anyway so it shouldn't make a difference. But as i didn't really have much option i forked out and made it to luke and bels.

The next morning really really early we dragged our sorry selves to the bus stop to make it to the train station for the first train so we would get to heathrow on time. We got off at Wembley aiming to jump on the metro line to make the journey a little bit quicker, however we waited and waited and 11 min later when the next jubilee train came by we thought it best to get back on that one.

It wasnt until we were well in the underground that I reached for my passport holder pulled out my passport and realised to my dismay that it was not my passport - it was Duncan's Australian one!!!!!

Oh no. My first reaction was that Dunc had taken my passport to Austria with him..... so i cursed and yelled and left abusive messages on his mobile phone until we went into the tube tunnels and i didn't have any more reception. Then the thought occured to me... hang on i had to take the passport to my job interveiw.... maybe it is still in the laptop bag.. hmmmm. So i jumped out at green park, and headed above ground and for the first time in for ever i was unable to find a black cab. finally one came by and i jumped in and headed back to bethnal green, from there i ran upstairs burst into our room (waking the friend of rob's who was borrowing our room overnight) grabbed the passport out of the interveiw stuff and then ran back down to the black cab that was waiting for me. £90 pounds later I was at heathrow.... and I beat the others on the train ha ha. Let this be a lesson for us all that leaving your passport behind is a costly (haha pardon the pun) experience.

A few hours later after we had been sitting onboard for an hour not going anywhere I was beginning to wonder whether this whole holiday was a good idea. But eventually we were in the air.

Sofia was a completely different town to any that I have been to yet. It seemed to be very run down and derelict and even the historical centre was missing some of the glitz that other towns of similar age have. It seemed lacklustre and tired. That said however walking around on Saturday afternoon showed us it would definitely be a good shopping destination, and we also learned that Bulgarians L-O-V-E their pizza.

That night we met up with the boys (Thomson, Dan and Baby-Paul) for dinner. Dinner was interesting, it was kind of like a bulgarian version of Fast Eddy's or Hooters or something, except the difference was instead of the girls all having really large boobs they wore really short skirts, and i mean really short, you could tell what kind of underwear some of them were (or were not) wearing. Don't get me wrong it was a family affair, there were families with kids and all sorts, it was just a little bizarre really :) We were a lot more impressed with the funky little bar we went to after dinner for cocktails - the cheapest cocktails ever. It was up above a store overlooking the main street which was quite cool. The only bad things were the smoke... and the alarming sign on the front door, which looked a lot like the symbol for non-smoking except it had a gun where the cigarette should have been. Fortunately there were no shots... except the ones we drank of course - ha ha!!!

You gotta love hostels. The Hostel Mostel (original name right?) started off well with reasonable sized clean rooms, a free beer and pasta the night we checked in and seemingly helpful staff. However that night after a coupld of drunks came to bed (not naming any names luke and grant) and we got to sleep - sort of. Our Japanese room mates woke up exceptionally early to leave and then one of them started to repack his suitcase!!!! He had a lot of zips, and plastic bags - ziiiiiiip, rustle rustle rustle, ziiiiiiip!

Which reminds me - what do you call a man in a pile of leaves?? Russell. I am so funny!!

So anyway the next morning a few of us were a little cranky as we had not had much sleep. Belinda went for a shower and flooded the bathroom, which ordinarily wouldn't be a huge problem but our toilet was in there..... eeeew gross.

Victoria Grant and I hit the site seeing in Sofia, which due to the smallish size of Bulgaria did not take long. We did see some beautiful buildings and churches, and some very cool, very old ruins!!! with 4 or 5 layers of frescoes on them - just amazing. I find it fascinating that some colours painted back then retain their vibrancy yet you can't get Dulux paint as long lasting as that.

We headed back to the airport where we were going to meet Sara and Al who were flying in that afternoon. Our chalet host Matthew was going to meet us there. We waited and waited and eventually got a phone call from Matt (by chance though, as Matt still had my old number and it was just lucky the I had loaned victoria that phone and she had it with her) and who knew?? Sofia had two terminals and they were landing at the other one. They were delayed but eventually Matt, Sara and Al turned up and we began our trek up to the Chalet.

The drive to Bansko was about 3 hours, and although we started chatty and excited, our energy faded like the sunlight, so by the time it was dark most of us were asleep. Some of the journey was quite hairraising windy roads, crazy traffic, but we got there safe and sound in the end.

The chalet is set a few streets back off the main road, and is a lovely restored old bulgarian building, you can see what it is like now at http://www.chalet-bulgaria.com/ but from the photos that Matt and Jenny showed us they have done a lot of work to it.

We were in long enough to get settled and showered (which was a must seeing as bel was the only one who showered at the hostel hee hee) before dinner was served. And the food was remarkable. Night after night we were greeted with a three course dinner, cooked beautifully by Jenny (an archeologist) and served by Amy and Matt. Entrees that we had included: organic carrot and corriander soup, stuffed mushrooms, cheese wrapped in pastry. Mains included chicken breast with bernaise sauce, duck, salmon, beef wellington. Deserts included french apple pie, poached pear, lime cheesecake and chocolate brownies........... the food was sooo good. Bel and I had been a little apprehensive about the wine, as the stuff we tasted in sofia was of dubious quality. However I am pleased to say we were pleasantly suprised. But to ensure the quality remained high, I taste tested every night :)

Duncan came in over night late but safe, and woke me up, but i was glad to see him.

Well after that whopping introduction, I can tell you that the next morning (Monday 12 March) we got to the slopes. Those who didn't have stuff hired it. We had our photos taken and bought our lift passes, mine is hilarious i should see if i can scan it in.... i look like a stoner rocker. From there the only way was up. The gondola had a half way mark, but because the winter was sooo mild there was no snow below the top gondola so we destined for the top. And at the top we all split up and head our different ways.

Sara, Al, Vic and Grant went off with "Mad" their instructor to have the ski-school (well snowboarding anyway), Dan, Paul and Thomson hit the bunny run, while the rest of us headed up to the top in the chairlifts.

I really enjoyed the week of boarding, I felt that it all fell into place and I was able go really fast safely. Dunc also enjoyed it as we seemed to be tying it all together. It was such good fun on the slopes snowball fights games.

The weather was..... well it was glorious blue skies sunny days and warm, which of course was lovely for all those skiers and snowboarders that were sun baking on deck chairs during their lunch (I kid you not, surrounded by snow with no shirts on). This of course meant we all got sunburnt on the first day it also meant that the snow got a little slushy on the lower slopes.

We had one day when it sort of snowed but it wasn't enough to make a real difference although the low cloud did provide a nice white out one afternoon which Dan and Dunc and I got lost in.....never fear though if you stand on your board you will find out which way is down :)

Wednesday is Matt and Jenny's day off, this mean that we got our own breakfast and went out for tea. It also meant that there was no cake waiting for us when we got off the slopes (did i mention that tea and coffee and freshly baked cake waiting for us everyday). The restaurant we went to served Bulgarian food, it reminded me a bit of a hunting lodge, with lots of internal logs and roughly hewn tables and chairs (not so rough that they gave splinters mind you). The food was amazing we ordered the equivalent to a greek mezze, where they bought out enormous platters with a little bit of everything on it. As we had come to learn of Eastern Europe there was lots of meat - lamb chicken pork beef, grilled bbqed roasted...... mmmhmmm. We had intentions of going out, but we were all so exhausted from snowboarding that we ended back at the chalet.

As the weather warmed up during the week the snowboarding days got a little shorter.... but we got up earlier to counteract that.

And all too soon it was our last day on Saturday! Before our Fabulous dinner of beef wellingtons.... followed by port and cheese we packed as that night we were heading out with Matt Jenny and Amy for last night drinks at a couple of locals. The club we went to was very eastern europoean where the prostitutes just wandered around propositioning the boys. The music was terrible (Although i don't think you can use me as a guide), but a good night was had by all.

Al and Sara left exceptionally early on the Sunday morning as they had an early flight, the rest of us rolled out of the bed, to the breakfast table, and into the van in what seemed to be 1 motion. 3 hours later we were at the airport waiting for the plane. The queue was really long, so we didn't have time to do anything other than check in and go through security......

Back at Heathrow it took forever to get out bags, everything seemed to be on a go slow. I had a cold setting in so was feeling a bit sad and sorry for myself.

And that ended our week in Bulgaria.......

A footnote: The week after we left it snowed in Bulgaria - lots and lots and lots - Bugger!

We've been busy ok?!

Hi people,

I know it’s been ages since we last posted on this but we have been very busy and we haven't had a lot of free time to spare. So what’s been taking up all our time? Well I'm glad you asked.

First of all we went up to visit Nannie in Solihull again. We love going back there as its nice and quiet and we actually get to have a nice relaxing weekend. We drove up there on the Saturday morning, and popped in to say hello, then quickly headed in to Birmingham to get Gem some new work clothes and also bring Nannie back some Krispy Kreme donuts... mmmm. On the Saturday night we took Nannie out for dinner to the Tavern up the road that gem used to work at. When gem worked there it was the grubbiest and dodgiest looking tavern around... but now it has new owners and they have spent a fair bit doing it up and improving everything. It is now a beautiful and spacious pub with some amazing food. We had some delicious started and then chowed into the carvery which was superb. We'll have to go back there again for sure.

We've also had two other friends of ours come so stay in London. Grant and Victoria have sold up their house and moved out here. We made the silly mistake of saying we'd meet them at the airport and drive them to Luke and Belinda’s place where they are going to be staying till they get jobs and get a place of their own. Sounded like a good idea till we were told the flight landed at about 5:30am on Saturday morning. So that meant driving out to Heathrow at about 4:30am. *Shudder* Anyway, we picked them up and went up for a nice cooked brekkie at Luke and Bel’s. It’s been great to see them again and they seem to be settling in well. As of today, they have both recently found jobs (Grant starts today actually) so the money should start coming in again and they can start to branch out and start enjoying London and what it offers.

On the Sunday after Grant and Vic came it was Chinese New year so we all headed into China Town in Soho... oh boy was it packed! The streets of China Town were packed shoulder to shoulder with people and they had this system of one-way pedestrian streets but it didn't seem to help fight the congestion. They are actually talking about moving it out of China Town for next year and in Hyde Park as its now just too big and popular. After fighting the crush for about and hour or so we decided to get out and just go have a cheeky pint in a local pub. Was much nicer to just sit and chat than fight the crowds. Oh, and if anyone can tell me the significance of hanging a lettuce from your door frame during Chinese new Year I'd be grateful. Anyway, we were going to hang around for the fireworks, but Luke and Bel had been there earlier than us as we had Tube problems and they had heard the last batch of fireworks but couldn't see them so we decided to give it a miss.

The following Wednesday me and Gem met up with Magnus and Nicole and a couple of friends of theirs from the Shetlands who are in London in China Town for a Chinese meal. We were also meeting Auntie Laura and Vaila (I think) as they were down this way to go visit Maya and catch a play in Scotland somewhere. Was good to catch up and we still intend to try and get up to the Shetlands and see them. It is however quite expensive (compared to flying to most places in Europe) so we might have to factor it into a trip to Scandinavia or something... we'll fit it in somehow I'm sure.

Right, what else have we been doing. Oh yeah, I have been researching some training for myself. Work is going to pay for it (with the usual caveats of paying some back if I leave in 6 months etc). Its for ASP.Net which is a newer web programming language. It should be good as I've been tinkering around with it at home but its quite a big change from the classic ASP I have been doing so it will be good to get some instruction in it. I had to search quite a bit as the courses are mostly all booked up till June in and around London, but I did manage to find one up in Birmingham. Work agreed to that so I start that next Monday for 5 days. I'm going to stay up with Nannie so I don't have to commute each day.

We also have recently been to the Cotswold’s... Me, Gem, Luke, Bel, Grant and Vic had a great little place right next to a working dairy farm (didn't smell thank goodness). It was a bit of a mission getting out there as I was going to finish work nice and early (about 1pm) on the Friday and meet the others over Acton way so we could all drive out in our car and Luke's car. Unfortunately I was helping on a project that had to go live on Monday and so needed to be finished by Friday. The client was being a major pain but they have the potential to be a massive client for JPMH so no one wanted to upset them. In the end Gem had to get in the car with Luke, Bel, Grant and Vic and I'd meet them up at the house as soon as I could. Ended up staying at work till about 7:30pm just hanging around make like 2 small text changes... but finally the client was happy and I got to leave. Finally made it to the house by about 10:45pm. At least I missed all the traffic, the others took about 3 and a half hours to drive there... took me about 2 :) It was really lovely out there and we walked around a few of the small towns like Upper and Lower Slaughter (great names) and a couple of others I can't remember but Gem might be able to fill you in on them. We had races with leaves and sticks in rivers and stopped at a little pub for a drink before heading back to the town for a nice meal. On the way back home me and Gem drove through a few other little country towns before finally making it back home.

I also got to go on our work ski trip to St Anton in Austria. Again a bit of a mission to get there as we were flying out from Stansted Airport at 7:05am... which meant being at the airport by 5:00am... which meant being at the coach station to get to the airport at 4:00am... which meant being up at 3:20am to get ready and get the mini cab to the coach station. At least I didn't have to take my board as gear hire was included in the cost so gem took my board to Bulgaria as she was leaving to go there before me. More on that in a moment. It was great to be there and it was also good to not have to rush to get in as much snowboarding as possible as I knew I had another week of it right after. The slopes at St Anton are geared much more towards skiers... not very well groomed and quite thin and twisty... easy on skis but harder on boards... us boarders handle steep slopes easier, but flat bits are a lot harder as skiers have poles. We are just nailed to a board so if we hit a flat bit and don't have enough speed we stop and then have to unclip. Major pain that is... Anyway, I didn't spend much money or go out to the town much as I wanted to save my energy and money for Bulgaria. But there were a few of us who just did the skiing/boarding and then hung around the bar in the hotel. On the first day I went out and did a few of the runs with a couple of other boarders, and then in the arvo I went and helped the beginners who were having their lessons. On the second day me and one of the skiers took out two of the boarders who had picked it up quite quickly out to the back of the mountain where it was much better suited to beginner boarders... nice and wide with a good gentle slope. On the Sunday the arduous journey to getting to Bulgaria began. Gem had left on the Saturday with a few of the others to stay the night in Sofia, and I was just going to meet everyone in Bankso (the Bulgarian ski resort) on the Sunday night. Basically, I had to get up at 5am, get ready and grab a coffee. At 6am we had a 2 hour bus ride to get to the airport in Austria, then wait till about 10:20am to get on out flight. Back into London about 11am after you adjust your clocks. I took a bus straight from Stansted Airport to Luton Airport which took about an hour and a half. I then had to kill time in Luton Airport till about 4:30pm when I could check in, then kill another few hours for the flight at 6:50pm. The flight is about 3 hours and it was a full plane. The seats on WizzAir (a budget airline) are pretty small so it wasn't terribly comfortable. Got into Sofia about 12:20am Sunday night/Monday morning where there was a cab waiting for me with a guy who didn't speak English. About a 2 and a half hour drive and I'm finally at the chalet about 3:30am. Said hello to Gem and climbed into bed and then got up at about 7:30 to have brekkie and hit the slopes. Lucky that cold mountain air clears your head nicely :) I won't go into any more detail about Bulgaria as I think gem started to write stuff down while we were there.

The other thing we have been busy with is trying to organise the trips for when Gems folks come out. So much planning! Trying to find the cheapest flights, good hostels/hotels, organising tours, working out car hire, working out which airport we all fly into as I jump back and forth a fair bit, holidays from work, itineraries etc etc. Its quite complex to try and fit in 5 or 6 countries all over a month and all the travel between and get it all to gel nicely. I think the plans at the moment (don't hold me to this) are fly into Turkey, do the ANZAC tour, fly to Budapest (Hungary), I fly home and Gem and her folks fly to Rome. I meet them again in northern Italy where we'll go to Monto Bianco (Mt Blanc) and Monaco etc and we drive around a bit, then we fly to Barcelona. From there Gem and her folks will go to Paris and I'll go home again. Then on the weekend I'll meet them in Bruges in Belgium and we'll all head back to London from there. Its a bit of a pain trying to coordinate all the various zipping in and out but I need to save the holidays so I'll come back and work some days when Gem goes to places I've already been. I would like to go to Rome again but we can't use up all my holiday before June, even if I told them I'm going to take more than my 4 weeks as unpaid leave. Still, thems the breaks. It'll be an ace trip anyway.

That about brings us up to date. Like I said before, I think Gem has some stories from Bulgaria and we just have pictures from Morocco and Bulgaria to put up.

We'll try and be a bit more diligent in updating the blog but cut us some slack... its hard work to do all this moving, planning, traveling, working, training, socialising. :)

Stay safe people.
Duncan.

20 January

Well this was the the weekend that we moved house. After living for 12 months in a share house that in the last few months had anything from 7 to 13 people living in it, we decided that it was time for a different experience. So we started looking for an apartment. Suprisingly the second one we looked at was ideal. We were not expecting to find anything that quickly. The apartment in a complex is in East London, in Bethnal Green, which is on the complete other side from our house in Acton. As well as that we had decided to go from a house to an apartment. We thought if we were going to have a change then we should make it a big change and experience another side of London as we had been told it was quite different in the east.

East London has a bit of a rep as being dodgy, with lots of crime and poor housing, the bright side of this is it is cheaper. It is also closer to a lot of the night life and eating areas in London. However with the London Olympics being hosted in east London the whole face of the area is rapidly changing, so we thought why not?

East London is also closer to London Bridge where Dunc works and as he has the permanent work it made more sense for him to be closer. Me not so much.... it is a bit of a hike to get over to Hammersmith.

The apartment is a mezzanine apartment in a block on regents canal. There are big windows looking over the canal and there is a little nature park there as well, we even have resident swans that cruise up and down that we can see from our bedroom.

We are on the mezzanine level with curtains that we draw for privacy if needs be. The room is a little smaller than what we had in Acton, however there are only 4 of us woohoo and the living areas are really big and spacious so it actually feels like we have more space.

So on Friday we packed allll of our stuff - we had accumulated quite a lot of stuff for just two people living in one room. We hired a van to move the next day which duncan had to go and collect nice and early from Heathrow. We packed everything into the van and head off with Sat Nav, and Mark and Gordo to our new abode. Mark and Gordo had agreed to give us a hand with the moving, as we only had a limited amount of time with the van we thought many hands make light work.

So our trusty Sat Nav directed us across London via the Ring Road, I led in the car with Gordon while Duncan and Mark followed in the van.

Getting there was the easy part we then had to lug everything up to the apartment and once in the apartment we had to get everything up the stairs to our bedroom. For the most part this was fine boxes and suitcases etc, however the wardrobe was not quite so easy. We had bought it from argos so it was delivered in pieces and then we put it together it weighed around 100kg. The problem was though that it took so long to put together I was determined that i was not going to take it apart again. Logistically this posed some difficulties. The wardrobe was heavy and the staircase was narrow, so we ended up 'passing' the wardrobe up over the balcony to the first floor. This meant the four of us had to lift it up as high as we can, then gordo and duncan held it there while mark and i ran up the stairs to grab it from the balcony. One we had hold of it gordo continued to balance it there while Dunc ran up to join mark and i and we hauled it onto the mezzanine level.

Once everything was safely on the first floor of the apartment duncan and the boys took the van pack while i began the arduous task of unpacking.

That done we decided to celebrate. We went to a pub nearby to our new abode called the Dove. It got very good reveiws and served belgian beer and cuisine. We met Anja (an occupational therapist that i work with at Charring Cross Hospital) and her roommate, and Sara and Sam. The food was delicious mmm mmmm.

Sunday consisted of more unpacking and rearranging and generally making ourselves at home.