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This Easter we decided to head to Barcelona, Spain for the long weekend. Beats the usual traffic jams trying to get out of Auckland City!

Barcelona was a fantastic city to go to with heaps to do and see. One must watch their step though as loads of dog doo in some areas – pop and scoop hasn’t caught on there that’s for sure.
The weather wasn’t as warm as it normally is in Easter so my lilly whites got to stay covered in jeans – lucky for the locals aye?. But all and all we had a great few days away, and I have to say it rekindled my love of Sangria again!

Having been to a few foreign cities now we decided the best way to get around all the famous sites is to jump on the tour buses that you can get off and on all day depending what you want to do, and how long you want to spend at various places. So get ready for your history lesson folks!

The cities nerve centre is the central Placa de Catalunya, it links the old town to the new extension laid out in the 19th century following the demolition of the medieval walls. It marks the beginning of the famous La Rambla - the most famous street in Barcelona! It heads from the square down towards the sea. It’s full of restaurants, flower stalls, bars, cartoonists, artists, market stalls, and some pet stalls selling turtles, hamsters, fish and birds. It’s a really busy street and pick pocketing if rife so you have to keep everything in your from pockets.

Port Olimpic:
Like Auckland needing the viaduct for the America’s cup, Barcelona needed one similar for the sailing competitions for the Olympics. It’s got shops and tones of restaurants and bars all the way around the marina – which berths 700 boats so lots of food available! Our first night there we went for a savory crepe followed by a sweet one covered in choc and cream which we shared – devine.
A crepe place like that would take off in Ponsonby for sure.

Port Olimpic was a 10 minute walk from the apartment we rented down by Barceloneta Beach.

2nd night there we meet up with Kylee who I used to work with in NZ and her boyfriend plus a few of their mates for dinner and drinks. After dinner we decided to check out the Spainish nightlife and hit a few of the bars. Now these bars have people (generally attractive women in skimpy clothes) out the front trying to get you into the bar. Each bar try to lure you in with various bonuses like free glass of wine for the ladies, a free shot for everyone, or two for one drinks. However at 9 euro per drink not sure who got the better deal there….. But we managed to score quite a few freebies with some good negotiation and had a good night out.

Architect Antoni Gaudi was famous for his unique style and highly individualistic designs. Here on the left is Casa Batllo’, built between 1904 and 1906 it was the former home of the Batllo’ family. Had to be quick with this shot from the bus. The shot on the right is of Casa Mila’, built between 1906 and 1910. The stone façade and iron balconies are meant to evoke the motion of waves.

Sagrada Familia:
This is one very massive impressive building. It was one of Gaudi’s dreams to which he devoted much of his life. He was still working on it when he died in June 1926 when he was hit by a tram crossing the road. Obviously didn’t look both ways! Construction of Sagrada Familia started in the late 19th century and is still under construction today with an estimated finish date of 2082! The photos speak for themselves in how amazing this place is, and I had to take a photo of a photo to try and show the whole thing as up close only about quarter of it fits in the cameras view. The main entrance is the shot with all the scaffolding, the other shot is of the rear entrance which is very gothic looking. Looks like it could come alive and eat you up!

Park Guell:
Park Guell is named after Gaudi’s great patron, count Eusebi Guell. The park is situated high in the hills of Barcelona, providing fantastic panoramic views of the city. We ended up coming here on our last days so caught the metro, caught three escalators up this street and then hiked another 100metres up this very steep street to get there – but trust me it was worth it! Although Barcelona was a very hazy city the views we still amazing.

After walking through the park we stumbled across this massive dirt roof that is surrounded by squiggly shaped chairs covered in mosaic – must have taken ages to make! It wasn’t till we walked down and followed the steps that we realised it was the main entrance to the park. The roof is held up by heaps of huge pillars under it. Off to one side there’s a massive curled tunnel of rock, in true Gaudi style this is meant to represent a wave curl – very cool!

The main entrance has the famous mosaic iguana fountain - very hard to get a pic of this fella as everyone wants their pic taken with it! They are currently restoring some of the entrance and fixing and re grouting the old mosaics.

Football Club Barcelona:
For all those football fans! The club was founded in 1899, it has gone way beyond the mere passion for football and become a true social phenomenon. There’s even a two stored mega sport store just selling FCB gear!! But we got a good tour of the club and the grounds and walked the same strip all the football greats they head out onto the pitch. As you will see they get a pretty big Jacuzzi in the changing rooms even.

Palau Nacional:
The square the majestic Palau Nacional sites on marks the gateway to the great park of Montjuic, the setting for the 1929 International Exhibition and of course the 1092 Olympic Games.

Port Vell:
Port Vell is the oldest part of the Barcelona harbor. There is a huge shopping mall here and movie complex here - St Lukes style. It was nice to see a mall again really as all the shops over here in the UK are set out like Queen Street, no malls in site!

Along from Port Vell is another marina with some rather nice boats! The brick building in the background is the history museum.

Barri Gotic:
Barcelona’s history has it’s origins in the gothic quarter which was built on the old Roman town. Parts of the city walls still survive today. The Cathedral is the focus of religious life and attracts big crowds. This was the only place we really saw beggers with babies, cripples and homeless holding out cups for spare change. I didn’t get a great shot of the entrance though, as like many buildings over here in the EU and UK they all seem to be covered in scaffolding for repair. But we did go up onto the roof and have a look around. Right in the middle of Barri Gotic there is this outdoor area that the cathedral surrounds.

I arrive home for two weeks on the 6th May so looking forward to catching up with you all!

As Steve was flying back to NZ on the 3rd I decided to leg it down to London and catch up with Kylee and some of her mates for the weekend.

Well if there was ever a way to annoy the local poms and give us kiwis a bad name - it would be the circle line Waitangi Day pub crawl. But wow what a day! There were approx 8,000 kiwi’s out on force celebrating our national day, and without the annoying protests we get back home!

Most people were wearing something NZ related, Billy T tee shirts, beige brigade outfits, All Black gear, farmers outfits, shorts, singlets and jandels for the really brave and even the odd dog and sheep outfit. The day was a stunner, crisp of course as we are in the middle of winter, but clear blue skys and even some sun!

It was a pub crawl, but as there were so any people we never actually made it into any of the pubs, instead we joined in the heaving streets outside the tube stops. Everybody was just hanging out in the atmosphere talking and drinking in the streets. The off licenses shops did a roaring trade selling mixes, hipflasks and beers that day. After a while the cops wouldn’t let any kiwis down on the tube for someone being a tad to drunk and falling down onto the tracks. A godsend for locals trying to get around London I’m sure!

So beat the feet it was, but that was all part of being in a cool atmosphere talking to other kiwi’s walking round London – I tell ya the accents really stood out and I can understand why a lot of people think were Australian when they first talk to us……..

As luck would have it some tube stops were open again, so we took advantage of this and headed to Westminster at about 3.30pm. The square was pretty busy, but at 4pm it was absolutely packed out ready for the 4pm Haka. Any guy could par take and it was cool to see them get up and give it a go.

The Westminster tube stop was blocked off by about 10 police which indicated ‘closed to kiwi’s again’……. So we headed to a floating boat bar and stayed there for a few hours before heading back to Shepherds Bush with a wee visit to Walk about Bar to finish the night off.

All and all a great day, and a cool atmosphere to be part of. And after being on it for over 10 hours I was mighty impressed there were no hang overs the following day!

Next bigger trip is 4 days away in Barcelona at Easter, and if were lucky one weekend away somewhere in between.

Belfast - 15th January
A bonus to living in UK is cheap flights! So we took a long weekend and flew into Belfast, trained down to Dublin and flew home. Visiting cities in winter has it downfalls as it’s usually raining and bloody cold! Ireland was freezing, a few degrees colder than Leeds for sure.

There are still a few bomb walls in place around certain buildings like the police station which were always targeted in the inner city. You should see the police cars, they are like little paddy wagons in NZ, but decked out like armored swat vehicles. Even all the sirens are housed in cages on the roof!

I knew the Europa hotel had been bombed several times, but wasn’t aware it was a staggering 37 times. The tour operator reckoned it was the most redecorated/refurbished building in all of Ireland! Just another one of his witty little jokes…… This statue was created to signify peace.

We walked around Belfast city, which really isn’t that big and jumped on the open top tour bus. This tour was more like going to a comedy show, the tour guide on the bus was fantastic, told you lots of history about the city and the famous sites as you drove round, and was a joke a minute!

Here we have the Town Hall, alot nicer than the Auckland Town Hall, and the insides are stunning.

I was surprised at how segregated the communities in Belfast were still. After the signing of peace agreement I thought Belfast was one big happy city, but the high peace walls between the communities are still there and still in force. The gates on the walls are closed in the weekend. Quite sad when you think it’s driven by religious disagreements!

The Harland and Wolff docks where the Titanic was built are still very much part of the cities history. Like Leeds a lot of the industrial areas are being turned into inner city apartments. The town clock is on a slight lean due to the sands it was built on built on moving all the time. There's quite a lot of cool artwork along the river, like this huge fish. It's made up of heaps of smashed ceramic.

And of course what town would be complete without a mobile sperm unit!

Dublin - 16th January 2007
Just over two hours and we were in Dublin. Our hotel was on O’Connell Street, which is the main drag so we were right in the centre of town. Again we took a ride on the open top bus, although no witty commentator on this trip, it was prerecorded and no where near as entertaining.

Now of course no trip to Ireland is complete without a visit to the home of Guinness! We spent about 2 hours going through the Guinness Factory which, as you would imagine is full of history about all things Guinness. At the end of your tour you get your free pint in the bar which is located at the top of the brewery, it’s surrounded by glass so you get great panoramic views across Dublin. Really overcast day and the shots through glass, but it gives you an idea.

Rain, wind and more wind! We caught the train from Leeds up to Edinburgh on the 30th to go to Hogmanay, a huge New Years Eve party with an expected crowd of 25,000. We looked through the city which in essence is made up of two main streets, Royal Mile at the base of the castle and Princess Street on the other side of the river, parallel to Royal Mile. A very condensed city, all the shopping is pretty much in Princess Street.

We headed to the castle the afternoon of the 31st. Weather by this stage was already pretty horrible, and after only being there for 30mins everybody was asked to leave. They have to close the castle down when it gets too windy and people get blown over due to the fact the castles on a high peak.

The weather got progressively worse and it started to bucket down, so Steve and I took cover in a local bar for a few ales. In fact we took cover in another 2 bars on the way home. After the last down pours the sky’s turned blue again and the weather seemed to get better – lets just say that was the calm before the storm.
At around 8.30pm Hogmanay was cancelled due to 70mph winds and heavy rain. Organisers tried to hold of canceling as long as they could, but as the winds picked up and starting rocking scaffolding etc they felt it was too dangerous. We were gutted it was cancelled, as it would have been a great atmosphere to be part of, but you can’t argue with mother nature and it would have been wet and cold out there!. So off course we headed to another well located bar down the road from where we were staying to welcome in 2007.

Not many pics of Edinburgh this trip due to such wet dark days, but it’s a beautiful city to visit. Very clean and tidy with rows of houses 3 -4 stories high all built in stone side by side each other. We did manage to go back to the Castle on the 1st for a look around. Lots of history there, that castle sure did see many battles. Got to see the crown jewels of Scotland, nice to see people were into bling centuries ago!

Happy News Years everyone – we hope 2007 is a great year for you all.

Well we held out for a white Christmas – but alas winter so far has been quite mild and our hopes of seeing any snow were dashed. We spent Christmas day and night at Helen Maytums, someone I used to work with at BNZ. I can honestly say this is the first year that I can remember that I didn’t over eat with all the xmas goodies on offer. In fact it was the opposite, we drunk more than we ate throughout the day. These brits sure know how to put it away!! However, we did have a yummy traditional hot dinner – no pavlova and strawberries though!!

We hired a car over xmas weekend as trains weren’t running over that time and Helen lives a good hour out of Leeds. We too the opportunity drive up to Whitby which is a cute little seaside fishing village on the east coast. In fact some history for you – it’s where Captain Cook left on his journey when he discovered little old NZ. We came back via Scarborough which is a popular seaside holiday location. The beach it’s self is about 700metres long, so not a patch on anything at home! It’s quite strange, the main roads in all the little seaside towns throughout Wales and England are just covered in amusement arcades, all rowed up along side each other. Being winter of course Scarborough’s all seemed empty so not sure how they all seem to stay open when they are all in direct competition with other and all have no customers!

Even though it was quite cold standing up on the cliff looking down over the beach and waves it was really nice too see and hear the sea again. Makes you realise just how good we have it at home, particularly in Auckland with a handful of nice beaches within an hours drive.

Well you can’t live an hour’s flight away from Paris and not go and watch the formidable All Blacks! So three days in Paris it was. We arrived Friday afternoon and managed to catch the train into the city and then get onto the metro to the stop closest to our hotel. Given this is the first country we have been to where English is not their first language we were quite impressed with ourselves for getting the tickets and making it to the hotel without getting lost! Doesn't help that the ticket machines are all in French.

For the first two nights we stayed in the Mecure just round the corner from the Moulin Rouge, so nice and handy to everything in the Montmartre area, with lots of café’s and bars around. We quickly discovered though that Paris is quite the expensive city with a pint of beer costing around 8 eruo, which is about £6, do double the price of what you pay here in the UK. But if you can find a wine shop they have nice bottles of red for about 5 euro. We were looking for somewhere to have dinner and decided to have a drink in an Aussie bar – ha the best thing about an Aussie bar in Paris is there are no Aussies in it!! However we ended up forfeiting dinner and ended up staying there for a few more hours talking to a couple, she was from Sweden and he was from South Africa.

Saturday 18th November
Well as we headed to breakfast I actually ran into Mike Jeffcoat who I used to work with at BNZ. He was over with his wife for the game as well - Small world that’s for sure. We walked around the city and caught to metro to most of the famous tourist sites. Sacre Coeur church, which is on the highest peak in Paris, Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge and of course the Eiffel Tower. All the buildings and churches are so huge and magnificent, they are so detailed with intricate statues and carvings all over them, makes you wonder how they managed to create so huge beautiful building without the tools we use today, let alone how long it must have taken them!

Arc de Triomphe is absolutely massive, so much bigger than I thought it would be, a truly beautiful building though. But oh my god, I can see why you are not insured if you drive a rental car around it – crazy drivers! There are now lanes and people are literally centimeters away from other cars, they don’t indicate and just drive where they want, which includes stopping at any sec to give way.

With the day nearly over, it was time to get back to the hotel, get on our AB gear and head to the match. We went via the Moulin Rogue at night to take some pictures with all the lights on, if definitely looks more impressive when it’s all lit up at night. We took a slight detour and went via the Eiffel Tower again so we could see that all lit up at night too, we had perfect timing too, although we didn’t know it at the time but at 7pm they switch on all the blue flashing lights for about 30mins, quite an impressive sight! However the queues to get to the top were no better than they were at 3pm that day so we gave that a miss and headed to Stad De France, it’s only about a 15min ride on the train.

Stad de France is huge - seats about 85,000 people, and the atmosphere inside is amazing. We had booked great seats and had a couple of kiwi’s either side of us to help cheer the boys along. There is something to be said about supporting your country when they play overseas, a totally different experience to watching them at Mt Eden.
And although the French gave us a run for our money at times we won which made being there even better!

Sunday 19th November
After a bit of a sleep in and a traditional French breakfast of croissants, cheese and ham and a egg you boil yourself to have with soldiers we checked out of the hotel (it was packaged with the rugby tickets) and went up to a boutique style hotel in Clinchy for the night - the Metro makes it so easy to get around, if only Auckland had something similar we wouldn’t have traffic problems. We headed to the Louvre, which is just HUGE. You could spend all weekend in there and not see it all, but we saw the Mona Lisa and that’s the main thing we wanted to say we had seen in there The building itself is like a huge piece of art!

Then we headed to Notre Dame which wasn’t too far from our hotel. As it was Sunday they must have had Sunday Mass which was quite nice to see and hear with the choir singing. Again, another huge magnificent building with stunning massive stain glass windows everywhere inside. Hands down beats any cathedrals we have in NZ.
We continued to walk around the streets checking out all the little stalls on the side of the ride selling art and souvenirs until our stomachs got the best of us. I love the crepes you can get in Paris, savory or sweet they hit the spot! Nutella does a roaring trade over here and seems to be available with anything you want to eat, especially in crepes with ice cream or banana.

Then it was back to the hotel for some R & R, I watched ER all in French – they are at least a season ahead of us as Abby was heavily pregnant in this show, while Steve surfed the net on his PSP.

Monday 20th November
Well time to get packed and head to the airport for our flight home. Since it was a Monday we decided to go via the Eiffel Tower again and see how big the queues were, and finally they weren’t to bad, so after waiting about 15 mins we were in the lift on our way up. Can't say I enjoyed the lift ride up - quite scary really as it goes so high, and then just keeps going up and up, I was glad to reach the top and get out! Of course the views from the top are amazing, although quite overcast and very windy when we were there. Paris really does spread out for miles and it’s mostly flat with the odd few clumps of corporate building dotted here and there. The city doesn’t have any houses, it’s all apartment style living in 3 -4 story white coloured buildings with little rout iron balcony coverings. It’s not till you get out by the airport that you see stand alone houses.

All and all we really enjoyed out long weekend, such a cute lovely city, so much nicer and cleaner than London central.
I was surprised though that I didn’t see any handbag dogs – I expected to see lots of chic French woman with designer bags just for their pouches!

Xmas is just around the corner, and Steve and I are heading to Helen’s (used to work at BNZ) for the day/night for lunch and dinner and no doubt lots of xmas cheer! Whilst it is getting colder over here, I don’t think we will see any snow on xmas day, as they say we are having a mild winter so far. Fingers crossed we might get some up in Edinburgh over New Years.

Well this weekend we decided to head to York as it’s only a 25 min train ride from Leeds.
It’s a really old town with lots of little pedestrian only cobbled streets. There is one street called ‘Shambles Street’ and when you walk down it you see why –a lot of the building are quite crooked and jut out all over the place. It’s a really pretty township with loads of pubs, cafes and food shops. Plus it has really good shopping – apparently lots of people come here to do their Christmas shopping as things are all quite compact. But it was busy enough when we were here on a Saturday, so will stay well clear during the Christmas hassle and Bustle. However they do have a designer outlet store a few miles out of York which we did catch the bus too. It’s like dressmart but bigger again with bigger brands - although we didn’t find any bargains that were a ‘must have’ and came home empty handed.

Most of the old protective city walls are still in tact, and you can still walk around them. You get some quite nice views on the walls and see things you wouldn’t get too if you just walked around the city. The minster (cathedral) here looks huge, but we didn’t have time to go in. We will come back another Saturday and look at things we didn’t get a chance to this time round – perhaps for go the sleep in and get the early train!

We also visited the remains of Clifford Tower. Some history on the Tower for you to read below.

As one of the most important cities in England, and an important base for holding and administering the north, York was the site for two of the castles William the Conqueror built in the years immediately following his conquest. The principal castle was begun in 1068, as part of a campaign to subdue anti-Norman sentiment in the north. Its wooden defences focused around and atop the motte; they were destroyed during a local rebellion the following year, but rebuilt by the Normans after suppressing the rebels and taking harsh reprisals on York.

In the latter half of the thirteenth century, the keep was rebuilt in stone. It was given a quatrefoil plan, of which there is no other example in England. The keep later became known as Clifford's Tower after Roger de Clifford, who was hanged there in 1322.

Next bigger trip for us is Paris – our first trip to Europe, so were both looking forward to that. We head there on the 17th and will go to the All Blacks vs France match on the Saturday nights – Go the AB’s!!

We have been following the NPC via the internet updates and Steve’s pretty happy with Wellington. He’s getting up extra early to watch the game this Saturday on Sky. I am secretly routing for Waikato to top the table though!

You have to love the fact that the UK has loads of bank holidays. Most of them have already been, but we took to opportunity of a three day weekend to get out of Leeds and decided to take a 3 days road trip around Wales to visit where Steve’s Grandad was born and have a general look around.

Saturday 26th Aug – picked up the hire car, nice little new Astra and got on the road. I was driving of course, as my map reading skills around towns leaves a lot to be desired – I tent to always head the wrong way, so navigation onto the motorway was left to Steve. We headed out towards Manchester, but bypassed the city and headed straight into North Wales and drove along the northern coast line. The scenery in Wales is very similar to home, just a tad greener, different sheep and more trees.

We headed into Llanfairfechan which is where Steve’s grandad was born. Really little village, not far from the sea side. Took some pics and headed back on the road. Whilst it looks a fair distance to travel you actually get around the UK quite quickly. This could also be helped by the fact that people treat their motorways over here like auto barns! We actually wondered what the speed limit was as there are no signs to tell you and when you have people flying past you at 100 miles an hour plus you have to wonder. But after asking a few people the speed limit is in fact the same as home But the difference about people over here is they now hoe to drive properly. The motorways are at least 3 lanes wide, and nobody sits in the fast lane doing 80km’s, and their doesn’t seem to be the need to crazy weaving in and out of traffic like you see in NZ.

So… from Llanfairfechan we headed back inland down through Snowdonia National Park through to a small town called Welshpool, then up the road about 3miles to a lovely B & B for the night. Being bank holiday weekend everything was booked out weeks in advance, and as it was a last minute decision for us we were pleased to get anything at all!

Sunday 27th Aug – After a yummy full cooked breaky we hit the road again and headed back west to Abergynolwyn on the coast, then on down through Swansea and around the bottom to Cardiff. Of course first point of call there was the Millennium Rugby Stadium – you can’t miss it really as it is right in the middle of town opposite the train station. We drove around the city having a gander, then headed down to the Cardiff Bay to the Welsh Millennium Centre (Canolfan Mileniwn Cymru) their equivalent to the Sydney Opera House, with the words “ in these stone horizons sing” carved out in Welsh and English along the front of the building. The wording also lights up at night and looks spectacular. Have to say though, the Welsh language is in a league all of it’s own. All I know is Wales is Cymru - and they say English is a hard one to learn!

Monday 28th Aug – Earlier start today as a bit of distance to cover to get home. From Cardiff we headed into Bristol for a brief look around and made our way north back into England and up to Gloucester. We stopped at the cathedral for about 40mins and looked around in ore at the beautiful stain glass windows and all the intricate stone and wood carving everywhere in this massive massive work of art.
It really is amazing to think that all this history has taken place long before NZ was even discovered!

From there we headed to Warwick and went into Warwick castle with what seemed like 1/4 of England as well on bank holiday. Lots of queues but it wsa nice to see what had been restored and how the other half lived all those years ago!

Well with most of Monday gone we and a few hours drive ahead of us we got back on the road and headed home via Nottingham where the camera promtly died after the first shot of the entrance of Nottingham castle. Just outside Nottingham there is a nuclear power plant - reminds me of Springfield on the Simpsons! They have them dotted all over England.

After 4 weeks of living out of suitcases, and lugging them from hotel to hotel until our reference checks were approved, we have finally moved into our new place. Who would have thought we would have been sick of eating out and would be dying for a home cooked meal!

It’s a 3 year old modern place in an up and coming area which is being highly developed – a lot like the viaduct in Auckland. However the ‘sea views’ you get in Auckland are ‘cannel’ views here and of course that’s on the nice expensive side of the building. We however are on the other side of the building which has stunning views of an old building site with a couple of piles of rumble remaining, as well as the Teatley Brewery. It’s about a 15min walk to the centre of town, so nice and handy that’s for sure. This is the first time we have both lived in an apartment with no street level entry and for the first few nights it seems quite weird that you can’t just go outside!

The place is fully furnished, but we went out in the weekend and bought a few essential things like nice pillows, a working can opener and a knife that can actually cut through a tomato. Only bugger is it doesn’t have a dishwasher as of course the washing machine is where you would have a dishwasher. So it’s back to the old hand washing and drying, you forget just how much you take a dishwasher for granted until you no longer have one. It’s a bit like the TV, you realise how much time you waste in front of it when you no longer have one. We are going to hire one if we can, as we don’t really want to buy one given it won’t work at home due to the voltage difference. Steve and I have been passing the time by watching DVD’s on the latop and playing games on the PSP. I came to work today with play station sore thumb – but alas no play station tan!

We will add some pics to the blog once we get email at home to access them. We need to get a phone line connected so we can get broadband. Nothing is done fast over here and a simple phone connection takes up to 10 days – and at a cost of £124.00!

Bank holiday this coming Monday so we are planning on maybe hiring a car and heading north for a few days as the really cheap flights don’t kick in until September. Will just jump in the car and see where how far we get.

First week of work is over, and I have to say being the new kid on the block isn’t that appealing after being in the one organisation for 8 years. But the people are friendly and the accent gives it away that I am definitely not from around here.

My second day in the office and I flew up to Glasgow to meet the communications team that I form part of. The brand team, strategy team and advertising agency are all based in Leeds, whilst the comms team are in Glasgow. Thought that was a bit odd myself with everybody working remotely, but it seems to work. At this stage I think I may be working a few days a month from the Glasgow office, and the rest of the time here in Leeds on special projects. You know, projects that are communications based that no one wants to touch with a barge pole – those are my ‘special projects’. Mind you they are all projects I have worked on at BNZ so at least they will be familiar.

The regulatory compliance here is really strict. So for you guys back home at BNZ thank yourselves lucky with the legals you have as they can be as long as an A5 page here!

Steve is on the look out for jobs and applied for loads with recruitment agencies, and about visit a few more in person this week. We went out to celebrate his birthday on Friday night, and both felt very sorry for ourselves on Sat. Steve’s not too impressed with the tap beer over here as it seems flat in all the pubs. I on the other hand am quite impressed with the price of Moet and Verve though, priced at £25 in the shops – move over Lindauer! Well that’s a treat anyway, and at this stage I have been sticking to cider really, and steering clear of the foul taste of Snake Bites.

They still smoke everywhere over here, and everyone smokes. In the cafes, lunch bars, pubs, hotels, stations, restaurants – everywhere. That is one NZ rule we really miss, no smoking inside bars. You go to have a meal and it reeks of smoke, so we have opted for take aways on more than one occasion.