Out and about in London

Can you believe it’s April already? Sorry for being so late with this, but life has been a bit crazy with starting the new job, and Tony studying again. And getting on to the computer to post this is almost impossible with someone using it to study.

It’s been an interest couple of months since I posted last. Firstly for me, was getting the job at etc.venues. I’m doing a very similar job to what I was doing at MCEC. It’s a great place to work, and I get to move around the venues, so am seeing and working in other parts of London. I’m predominantly based at our venue at London Bridge, which is a great spot. 

 And too close to one of the best markets in London, Borough Markets. For some reason over the years, I’ve worked in some of the best locations. Borough Markets is a pretty great spot, and has some great food and wine. And even the bars and pubs here tend to do amazing food. I’ve frequented Bedales and the Southwark Tavern recently, and enjoyed great company, great wine and great food. Highly recommend stopping past if you’re ever in the area. And there are feijoas I can indulge in once in a while.

I try to get out during my lunch breaks to take a bit of the scenery around whichever office I may be based at. I’ve spent a lot of time around Borough/London Bridge where our Head Office is, and have found some interesting little spots. 

This is a little spot I found, which is close to work, and a nice spot in central London to get away and have some quiet. The history is interesting and makes you think about what it used to be like. 

I love getting out around the city and exploring. There’s so much we didn’t see when we were living here, and we have also invested in a secret London book, to go along with the London book Natalie gave me for my birthday a couple of years, by Saska Graville. Not only is it a great read, it also has some great ideas on where to go in London for shopping, eating and just chilling.

It is starting to warm up and the sunshine is lovely when it’s not behind a cloud. It’s nice to be able to sit outside in the sun, as long as it’s away from the wind. And the days are getting longer and longer. Only three months til the longest day, but the mornings are light, and the evenings are getting longer.  Although, work is keeping me busy and the weekends we tend to try and get out a little bit but the weather hasn’t been great. And we’ve been saving for our quick trip back to Aussie at the end of April. But once we’re back it’s all systems go for trips and holidays being booked, and these just seem to be adding up. At the end of rebruary we didn’t have a lot booked in, but we certainly do now. And more and more have been added to the list. We may a list when we first arrived in the UK, of the places we want to go to and things we want to do. Of the excursions and holidays we have planned for this year, there are only two things from the list. And that was completely accidental.

We had a great Easter. It didn’t really feel like Easter, until Easter Saturday when we miraculously found some Cadbury’s Marshmallow Easter Eggs. And we hadn’t had a lot of Hot Cross Buns by that point either. And it was a total shock when we discovered all the shops, restaurants, bars and everything else were open on Good Friday. Then most things were closed Easter Sunday. And the British parliament has just voted down again the Sunday extended trading hours. It seems exceptionally misplaced, but can’t complain. We had an extra shopping day. ;)

Easter Friday was a gorgeous day, and was bespoke of the summer we’re hopefully going to have. We spent the afternoon at a bar on the Thames near Kew Bridge, close to Chiswick, enjoying a wine or two and a bag of crisps. I even got a little colour in my face. The rest of the weekend was definitely indoors weather, and we didn’t manage to get to the annual Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford universities (which we had planned to go to). Instead we went to a movie and laughed our wee heads off. Deadpool is highly recommended if you haven’t already seen it.

Our health insurance, which is through Tony’s work, is keeping us active. If we make a certain number of steps each week, which is linked to our garmin and fitbit, we get free movie tickets. So we’ll be watching a lot more movies in the coming weeks. And it means we walk more. Which is also a good thing. Walking to the pub just down the road will become a thing of the past. A) it’s too close, B) it doesn’t have a garden bar to sit in when the sun is shining. Or maybe we just get our steps in, and we head back to the local.

The big discussion in Britain at the moment, is whether or not Britain remains in the EU. There is a referendum in June to vote in or out. There seems to be benefits to both leaving and staying in. It’s been nicknamed, as everything else seems to be these days, Brexit. Britain’s exit… it seems the hot topic of conversation in companies, government and amongst friends. I’ve even seen an article in the Wetherspoons magazine by the CEO about it.

Everyone has an opinion and the amount of propaganda around it is huge.  Tony and I are actually eligible to vote too. This happens in June, so it’s going to be interesting watching the propaganda come out in the weeks leading up to that. It’s pretty big now, but I imagine it will only get worse in the lead up.

One of the big things I’ve noticed since being back, and part of the whole Brexit issue, and part of the reason the NHS(National Health Service) is falling apart is due to the increased immigration coming in to the UK. In 2014, around 632,000 people immigrated to the UK. 48% of those were from the EU. Admittedly that makes 52% percent from the rest of the world, but that’s a far higher pool of countries. Because of this, the country is making life harder and harder for Non-EU nationals. New visa rules have been put in place and the NHS is also putting additional rules around who can sign up and also introducing a fee for anyone on a Tier 1-2 visa. I am not sure yet if this is going affect us and the Visa’s we are on. I don’t believe it will, but time will tell.

We head back to Australia in two weeks, for a wedding in Queensland. We have a few days in Melbourne before heading north to Airlie Beach for the wedding, and then on to Hong Kong for three days. Tony wants suits, and I want to explore. We’ve been before, but only spent 12 hours there, and we’ve been told there is so much more to explore. It will be nice to see everyone, and the fur babies, who we have been missing. 

Anyway - that's about it from us for now. We are happy, healthy and both enjoying the longer days and the warmer (slightly) days. 

xx