Home

Finally, I have a home! I spent the first week that I was working at a hotel - not as fun as it sounds. If it was the Ritz or something, it might have been better, but lets just say this hotel was not even close to that. Apparently marking something urgent doesn't actually mean that you need it in a hurry...

Anywho, I eventually moved in to the house, and spent the next 10 days sitting on the floor, because I had no furniture. Despite Ikea telling me that they deliver to this area, they neglected to tell me at the time that I needed to actually go to the store and find the items and pay for them, before arranging delivery (as opposed to online and phone orders like they do in other parts of the country). So at lunchtime on the Saturday that I moved in, I had no furniture, including no bed. The bed problem got solved fairly quickly, but it took another week for me to be able to hire a car to go back to Ikea. And an extra two days to get the delivery, because they FORGOT it. B*stards. Nevertheless, I now have furniture, well at least some furniture, and it's starting to look like a home. I don't have photos of the inside yet, as I neglected to do it earlier and now it's a bit too dark to get decent snaps even with the lights on. I'll get to that later. In the meantime, this is the front!

It's a one bedroom terraced house, which to most of you is the same as a townhouse. It's in a beautiful area, tree-lined streets, quiet, everything that I want. It's in a Tolkien area - the streets around it have names like Gandalf's Ride amongst others.

I know that this photo show the house as empty, but it shows you something at least. Like my fireplace! By the way, this photo was taken the day I first viewed the property, but I forgot to do it when the estate agent was here. So, naturally, I took it by peeping through the letterbox!

Waitrose

This isn't really a travel story, but it was quite funny at the time, and I've told the story to a few people so I thought I'd share the photos.

Jai (a cousin of some kind - third or something, we never bothered to work it out), her boyfriend Jon and I came over to Southend On Sea, on the day that I was looking at more flats to rent near school. Jon has this tradition where he goes to Waitrose for breakfast whenever he goes over there. Waitrose, for those who don't know, is a kind of up-market supermarket, and there is a restaurant there.

Well, we turned up at Waitrose before they opened, so wandered down to use the ATM. By the time we came back, they were just about to open the doors. We could see inside that they were taking photos and cutting a ribbon, but didn't think more of it. The doors opened, and we walked in. A guy was following us, calling out to us (which we ignored, because he was calling out 'Ladies!', so naturally we assumed it wasn't us!). To cut a long story short, Waitrose had been refurbished and this was their grand re-opening. There was a guy who walked in at the same time as we did, so they gave him a bottle of champagne, but Jai and I were the first females through the door. They gave me a massive bunch of flowers, and then went and got a matching one for Jai because we'd come through together. Then they took our photos for the in-house newsletter. Not a bad effort overall - we turned up for breakfast, and ended up with two very expensive bunches of flowers!

Picadilly Circus

Once we left the palace (that sounds like we were actually inside it, but you know what I mean), we walked up towards Picadilly Circus. It really is kind of odd to see these things, having seen them in pictures and movies for my whole life, and to suddenly be standing right there looking at it in real life. It was madness - people everywhere pushing and shoving and in such a rush to get everywhere. I guess you would get complacent about it after a while, but in the meantime, I'm happy to look like a tourist and gaze in awe!

I finally got a photo of one of the buses! Sadly, I still get excited when I see one.

Buckingham Palace

At one end of King James Park is, you guessed it, Buckingham Palace. There had been something going on that day (no idea what), so there were a lot of people around and things being packed up. I can see why the 'commoners' get cranky at the establishment, given the overwhelming grandeur of the place. It was all a bit pretentious really, but I've been there now, so I can always cross it off the list!

King James Park

From Trafalgar Square, we took a stroll along past King James Park. In the desperate search by the Poms for the last gasp of Summer, there were deckchairs for hire. In the park, in the middle of the city. Random!

Trafalgar Square

Back when I was still staying with the rellies, I had to go to London for an appointment. We had an extra couple of hours, so we took the scenic route and did a bit of sight-seeing along the way. We caught the train to Leceister Square, heart of the theatre district. Oh. My. God. Talk about my new favourite place! Especially looking at all the half price ticket places! And all the posters for the shows!

Anywho, we moved along from there before I went and bought tickets to something that I really didn't have the time to see, and went virtually around the corner to Trafalgar Square. As icons go, this is a pretty big one (made better by the red double-decker buses going past!). It was pretty amazing!

This is the National Gallery, which takes up one side of the square. It's on the list to go back to.

Eton

When we got off the ferris wheel, we took a stroll along the river towards Eton. Because it was school holidays, we couldn't go to the school to have a look, but it's a quaint little town all the same.

This is a college I'd want to go - looks like the curriculum would be easy enough!

Windsor Wheel

On a second trip to Windsor (before the current foot and mouth outbreak might I add), we went on the Windsor Wheel. It's really just a big ferris wheel, but it did provide an awesome view, across Windsor, Eton and even all the way to Wembley Stadium in the distance. The weather has been kind since I arrived, so it certainly was quite a sight!

It was a little expensive, but certainly worth it. One day I'll go back and actually tour the castle, I suppose!

I'm back

Finally, I've returned to update my blog. It's been a big few weeks, and I have only just got the internet connected at my new house. The next few posts are going to be slightly out of order (not that you'd know it), because frankly I can't remember in which order I did things. Enjoy!