Holiday Booking
I'm in the process of sorting out this year's holiday. I'm going to go see a young lady I started seeing last year only to hear that she was going round the world for 18 months. Bad timing I guess but we've stayed in touch and so I'm going to go see her in Australia. A colleague of mine out me in touch with his wife who works for a travel agent and I can get a flight with Quantas for a very reasonable price, with stopovers included. I have a choice of Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Bali, Jakarta and Narita. Hong Kong is definite and I'm torn over the others. I think I've finally settled with Bangkok, one of the reasons being to go and see the Buddhist monasteries. So my itineray may look like this...
Sept 30th - Heathrow to Bangkok (Arrive 1st Oct)
Oct 4th - Bangkok to Sydney (Arrive 5th Oct)
Oct 18th - Sydney to Hong Kong
Oct 21st - Hong Kong to London
I've never done Asia or Australia so I'm quite excited!
Dickie does it again
We went to see Richard Ashcroft agin on Friday. It was a very different crowd, different venue (Brixton Academy) and a different Richard. He was still awesome though. Very much more together and polished than last time but still putting his heart totally into his music. The man truly is a musical genius. Sweet Brother Malcolm and an unplugged version of Song for the Lovers gave me a lump in my throat but as usual the highlight of the night was Bitter Sweet Symphony.
Mum and Chris came to London yesterday so we went back to the farm. They had a lot of rabbits but 2 of them were just huge. One of them was a monster, it's ears as long as my rabbits. They were all lovely though. Then we went for Tappas and got a bit drunk, which was nice of course.
I've just watched the Championship playoff that Watford won. I'm glad they did and that's all I'm going to say on the subject. :o)
Mayhem
Mayhem paintballing in the heart of sunny Theydon Bois (pronounced 'Boys' I am assured. It was great fun but I'm still recovering. When you go with trigger happy friends who aren't scared of shooting from less than a metre away you're gonna come home with a few bruises. Add legs that feel like lead (still) and a stubbed toe. Still, at least it's not like being at war. I can come home and get in bath and then go to the office the day after. Imagine being at war where you have to do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for God knows how long! Anyways, a bloody good time was had by all and I hope we will all go again.
London in the summertime!
Although it's not technically summertime yet, it certainly felt it this evening. I'm lucky enough to be able to get home by several different methods; Bus, tube, DLR and in the summer...boat. It's a short walk to Blackfriars bridge and from there it's about 20 minutes to Canary Wharf. From there I can take the
Thames path which is a lovely waterside walk home. This evening was just grand, hazy sunshine, children running about, birds on the water - almost perfect. In the distance I could see the London Eye and the gherkin. Now I remember why I came to this city.
Good day had by all
Exactly as planned we got up nice and early and went to Borough Market. First sight we saw was the lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels house, which was a bit of a bonus to be honest. Here it is...
Then to Borough Market itself. It was totally not as expected. I expected it to be this huge warehouse affair with wholesale fruit and veg. It's not like that at all. It IS a normal market with some of the loveliest food I've ever seen. I spent quite a bit of money but still got value for money. See below for the type of things you can get there...
Then off to Mudchute farm. As you can see below the animals are pretty relaxed. It is exactly how animals shout be kept. It's clean, lots of space and you can just see that the animals are happy and have no fear of dying, as they ain't gonna be eaten! This goat was just chilling in the sunshine, ocassionally lifting it's head to perhaps eat some grass...
...and here is the farm with Canary Wharf in the background. It's a lovely place with no sound of traffic. I will be back.
Hard times
It really has been a hard couple of weeks to be honest. I've had one real day off in the last couple of weeks and I'm about shattered! My boss has been pretty good though and is letting me have a long weekend this weekend and I'm handing off my on call responsibilities so I am able to properly relax. Just my luck, it looks like it's going to rain but to be honest I don't really mind rain too much. Saturday I'm going with a friend to Borough Market. I've been wanting to go for about a year now but never actually got round to it. After that, perhaps mudchute farm to see the little animals and then the cinema for M:I III. Then on Sunday probably watch a bit of football and just relax. Nothing hectic, just chilling with the monkeys.
