Bank Holiday Weekend

Today's a bank holiday! YAY it means a day off work =) Yesterday we went to the Notting Hill Carnival. It was crazy, we didn't really see much of the parade, just basically loads of people everywhere. It's the 2nd biggest carnival held in Europe and we'd read in the paper that they were expecting 1 million visitors per day. Food stalls, bars and lots of entertainment all ingredients for a fun afternoon. We'd read that the crowds would be horrendous and the queues unbearable so we went prepared with our own alcohol. It wasn't actually too bad, didn't have to wait long for a loo and once you found a spot away from the main access areas you were sweet. We met up with Lee-Ann, Spence, Rich and Anna, Derek & Dave. I got very drunk...don't remember much of the evening, but was home in bed by 10pm! oh dear! =) everyone had to put up with drunk loud hayley taking a million pictures and hearing how wonderful i thought they all were...blah blah . Am feeling surprisingly ok today, although had a meeting with the toilet at 5am...gross, how old am I!? too old for this carry-on! anyways this is our last night house-sitting (with free internet!) so thought I'd get it all up-to-date. We're heading out to Hyde Park soon, gotta make the most of this fab weather and a day off work!!!

PS. Niki's just shaved off his beard... he looks so different!

Royalty

Saturday afternoon we drove to Windsor, which is only 30mins away from London. Was primo weather (first sun in ages!) and the town was bustling with activity. We didn't arrive until 3pm so we hurried to Windsor castle first as that closed at 5pm. The castle was awesome, I'm really glad that we went (even though it cost £14 ea!). After that we grabbed some eats from Marks & Spencer and headed down to the river to lax in the sun. We decided to hire a row boat for 30mins and had fun rowing up the Thames. We were both pretty bad at it! Later we wandered up to Eton College and had a look around the outside. Didn't see Wills or Harry unfortunately, so no royal engagements on the horizon. Queen Hayley, has a nice ring to it aye =)

Photos

Just letting you all know, that we've (finally) sorted our pics so now when you click the link to our photos, all our public albums will be available so u can chose what u wanna see. We've also cut all the albums down hugely so there's not too many pics to trawl through! Have made a start on the captions too...

Enjoy! =)

week night happenings

Wednesday night we had a wee dinner party since we have our own pad for a week or so. Marty & Sheree and Lee-Ann came around and we feasted on all things bad...

Thursday night we went to the BBC studios to watch a recording of a british comedian, Marc Woolton. I got the tickets free a few weeks back off the internet, you can join their mailing list and apply for as many shows as you want. They give away more tickets than there are seats so u aren't guaranteed a seat but there were plenty left. It was a pretty cool experience, just being there and seeing all the equipment and sets etc. Seeing the producer, camera men, waiting for technical difficulties; them re-doing a song cos it didn't sound right ...even though we hadn't noticed any thing wrong...all things show business, you know the drill. We had to watch some of the acts a few times so it got a lil boring but the guy is very talented, he does heaps of different characters and they make him up so well. It was weird seeing this old lady and then after the act he'd talk normally and it's just so weird! They also showed some pre-recorded stuff on the big screen, apparently that was to get our reaction so they know what is "funny" and what's not. And in between all that they had another comedian guy whose job it was to keep everyone entertained during the show while there were "technical difficulties". He was pretty funny but he had to work hard cos the crowd wasn't too responsive. You could leave whenever you wanted and a few did. Anyway another thing we can say we've seen! I'm ready for an Oprah or Jerry Springer live show now :)

Sightseeing

We're housesitting for Niki's boss at the mo, it's pretty wicked having a gorgeous big house to ourselves, well nearly, it comes complete with a cat! Minnie is luvly, 14 years old but looks young still, she's very affectionate so I've really been enjoying having cuddles. I'm such a cat person!

Friday night we went to Anna & Derek's house for a BBQ and many drinks. They leave in a couple of weeks so it was good to spend some time with them. Niki had to work on Saturday, driving for over an hour each way and shovelling grain for 6 hours or so. wasn't so fun with a slight hang-over! But he survived and it's all about earning the pingers! Meanwhile, i stayed in bed til 10 and met up with Lee-Ann in the city for a spot of shopping around lunchtime. The trip wasn't too successful with Lee-Ann buying nothing, however i did come away with a £10 pair of cute white & pink casual sneakers! Saturday night we were knackered so just stayed in and watched a dvd...first time we've had the opportunity to do that for ages.

Sunday we took Niki's work van and ventured out of London to see some sights. First we went to Stonehenge which is one of the wonders of the world...or something like that. A big mystery as to how they would've moved the rocks there and what it was used for etc etc. It was kind of cool walking around it, and lovely being in the countryside! Albeit very cold!!!!!

After that we drove to Bath which took longer than expected (after a few wrong turns!). Unfortunately it was 3pm when we arrived and cold & rainy. We still explored a bit though. Bath's quite pretty and famous for it's huge amount of historical places, museums, churches etc. There are these "roman baths" with natural hot water springs, but that was going to cost £20ea or something stupid so we gave that a miss...seen enough of that in Rotorua bro! At about 6ish we found a cosy pub to have a drink in, hot choccy for me, soo cold! Only cost £2.42 for a pint of beer and my hot choc, cheapest ever...we've gotta get out of London! Although then u earn less too I guess.

Who ate all the pies

The weekend just been was all about eating and drinking. Saturday we went to a shopping mall for a looksy and on the way came across a shop that sold NZ beers, so of course the boys had to have 1. After an hour or 2 at the mall (and a few bargains later) we grabbed lunch and travelled to Earl's Court, stopping on the way for another beer and purchasing a couple of Bacardi breezers for me for consumption on the Tube. Reason for this was that we were on our way to a UK beerfest. We had a fun afternoon, I managed a couple of sips of beer but it's so yuck! Every time someone dropped their glass (which happened quite often) the whole crowd would cheer and it would move around the whole building (referred to as a a Mexican heeeeey apparently). Luckily none of us dropped ours. It was the last day of the festival and it finished up at 7pm. The boys were a bit drunk and very hungry so we headed into KFC for dinner and then hopped on the tube down to Shepherd's Bush where we had our first experience in a Walkabout. Walkabout is a chain of Aussie pubs around the UK, known to be frequented by a crowd of primarily Aussies, NZr's and Saffa's. Could be compared to the Grumpy Mole or the Outback back home. We'd heard lots of crazy stories, but on Saturday night every seemed to be well behaved (much to the boys' disappointment). They had a live band whom were awesome so we had a bit of a boogy. At one stage I heard Niki Woohooing and thought "gee he's getting into this.." but no, I should've known, he was watching the Warriors game!! We left at 11.30 as I didn't want to deal with night buses again and that worked out splendidly.

Sunday we were invited to Marty & Sheree's place for lunch and cocktails. They made lasagne (even homemade pasta), and other fancy canapes! It was soo yum. Marty was a good cocktail waiter and was constantly in the kitchen whipping up something new. Lotsa fresh fruit drinks and even had a try of absinthe. We were soo full, yet fitted in dessert and basically just sat around laxing/drinking the whole afternoon before running out the door at 6.30pm as we had Lee-Ann's Birthday dinner to go to! Luckily it was just up the road. We went to Mongolian BBQ...yes all u can eat! We rolled home that night.

Good Hair Days ...every day!

Yes that's right people, I've finally got my own GHD's!! (super duper hair straighteners for those who don't know). I'm loving them...should have brought some years ago!! No more frizzy ponytails for me... Now I'll need to find something else to whinge about...

brighton

Lee-Ann, Niki and I went to Brighton on Saturday. It was primo weather, probably the best day we've had since arriving. Train takes an hour from Central London so no sleep-in for us. We had found out the night before that the Gay Pride Festival was also on in Brighton Saturday, the trains were therefore super crowded, we were lucky to get seats. Brighton is a pebble beach, awful to stand on without jandals and rather uncomfortable to lie on...but still i enjoyed the fact that there wasn't sand all through my stuff! you can hire deck chairs, loungers etc for about £2 but we did it the budget way

The parade was definitely interesting! very flamboyant but the crowd wasn't as noisy and into it as I thought they would've been.

After the parade we just spent a few hours sunbathing and relaxing. We later went up to the Pier as there are a lot of carinval type rides there. We were all very brave and went on one of the best (yet scariest) rides i've been on.

After that it was about 9pm so we went out to dinner at a great thai place that Lee-Ann had been to. Niki said that it was the best thai green curry he has ever had... and that's all he has been talking about since.

We went to catch the 10.30pm train home but it was packed, managed to get on the 11pm one and even got a seat...but unfortunately it took 2 hours to get back to London, by which time the tube's had stopped...so on a night bus we hopped once again!! Safely tucked into bed finally at 2.30am!!

How many men does it take to...

The lawns at our flat are horrendous, at least knee deep in most places as well as vines, blackberry bushes, stinging nettle etc etc all over the place. Apparently the lawns haven't been mowed for nearly a year, even after much hassling of the agent. Everyone was getting a bit fed up with it, especially since it's summer (and the sun is actully shining) we want to be able to have a BBQ. The agent finally turned up a couple of weeks ago with a brand new mower ... an electric one! It was a bit of a joke, the machine would last for 1min then putt out. But after lots of determination some of the guys had a go over a few days & I'm pleased to say the lawn is finally mowed. Thanks Guys!

The weekend of 28-29 July

Saturday we went to the O2 stadium as the Red Bull Air Race was on, we didn't want to pay £20 for a ticket but got to see quite a lot from outside the gates. It was very impressive. Saw a helicopter doing 'flips' in the air, i so thought it was going to crash.

We found a sushi place inside (surprisingly rare over here). The sushi comes wrapped in plastic and there aren't as many choices as at home... before going to sushi we got given a ticket for a a promotion and it ended up being 20% off sushi plus the guy gave us a voucher each for a cocktail (score!). After our scrumptious FREE cocktails we headed back on the tube into the city to Hyde Park to meet some of our flatmates at a 'kiwi' picnic thing. (note the pak'n save bags in the pic! ...someone's dedicated!) We had to find a grocery store first, which proved nearly impossible as we had stumbled across the posh part of town, Harrods, designer clothes etc. At the park we just laxed out in the sun, had a few drinks and nibbles while people around us were playing cricket, touch rugby and frisbee. Unfortunately no-one really itnereacted outside their 'group' that they were there with but we still had a fun arvo. At about 7ish we invited ourselves to our flatmate's friends "going away" drinks and had a fun time there before heading into a bar for a while. They had a thousand different flavours of vodka so of course i tried a couple of shots! next thing the music stopped and it was all over...they closed at 12.30am. and then the real adventure began of getting home... 3hours later!!! we had to change buses 3 times I think, and each time we had to wait at least 20mins cos they don't run very often at night. Plus there was a horrible drunk old man at one of the stops that wouldn't stop harrassing us. ICKY

Slugs

The slugs over here are massive, and there are lots of them everywhere when it rains! gross!!!! here's a pic of one, i was brave enough to put my chapstick next to it so u can see how huge it is!