We are officially moving house this weekend!! (I promise once we are settled there will be photos - also once I finish my London chronicles.... Speaking of which...)
The next few days were a lot more wandering than photogenic!!
Saturday morning started with an early rise to get to the Walkabout in Covent Garden to watch the Rugby... A true aussie experience (although I am still none the wiser about the stupid game - other than we lost!!). The highlight was seeing a poster add for Josh Pykes new album in the toilets - amazing the little pieces of home you find so far away!!
After checking out the Australia shop (And I must say I found the English version of the Australia shop on Pitt St yesterday - never again will I go hungry for Quavers - though I might go broke buying them!!) we headed to Covent Garden for some really cool street performers and amazingly a bit of sun! We jumped on the train and headed up to meet the family, which was just amazing!! So many people I had heard about growing up but not met, was strange but lovely to finally be able to meet these people. I was overwhelmed by how "family" they felt, it wasn't like meeting new people at all - straaange, but lovely!! We had a proper English lunch with.... beans!! Can I just point out there is NO escaping beans in England!! And then spent the afternoon in the Sunroom - a fantastic creation of the English (much better than beans anyway!!) and watched the rain and the sun battle it out for the afternoon.
Sunday brought my first adventure onto the tube system by myself as I once again set off in search of Hugh Grant... Notting Hill here I come!!
After setting myself up for the day with a Bacon Buttie, I searched up and down Portobello Road for him to no avail, and after discovering that the big market day was Saturday (ie not today!!), caught up with an Aussie mate Jess and we staked out a pub until it finally opened at midday and settled on some cider to get us through a couple of hours of catch up!!
I made my way back to Green Park and marvelled at the paintings hanging all the way along the fence... there were a couple I would have loved to bring home but the practicality of carrying it around was too much!! Instead I wiled away the time in Waterstones... a five story book shop!! This too could have bankrupted me!! Thankfully I had a prior committment and met up with another mate Mike, who has moved to London, and we pretended to be fancy and have scones and tea at The Wolsely. Now I say "tea" but being the caffeine addicts that Mike and I both are, much to the waiters dissapproval switched our tea for coffee!
After a long day of wandering I headed back to meet up with Emma who had spent the day at Lords enjoying the sun, champagne and cricket (in that order!! Ha ha!!) before... you guessed it... we hit the pub!!
We eventually made our way back towards home (stopping to wave at the Shell building for Ange!) and to spot my second fave statue in London, but for a very different reason...
Some call it art... I call it spewing man!?!?!?
Anyways.. what was worth it was the stunning view across the Thames... I tried and tried to capture it with my camera, but in the end gave up and just enjoyed the moment. The best pic I have is as below!!
Really - you had to be there!!
Monday came and Emma had to do some work!! Ah ha... So i again went for a wander around Greenwich as I had decided I would attempt to cook a true Marks and Spencers dinner that night. Eventually I managed to convince Emma she really should ditch work and come shopping - so it was back to Canary wharf to hit the Next sales and... yep - more shoes!!
This was incredibly exhausting for all involved so we settled down to our M&S dinner... and British Next Top Model!! Oh yeah....
Finally, I ticked another thing off my list that night with a proper English curry for dinner... YUM!!!
