Our updates

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.

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 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!

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.

We have been back to Settle, grabbed our bags and have headed back down to Leeds. Decided to stay in Leeds as the 2 hours train travel was going to cost me 55 pounds a week and Steve needs to be based central city this week for job hunting, plus we hope to hear back about our apartment by Tues. Fingers crossed we can move in and unpack our bags once and for all. Takes about 1 week to get reference checks done, plus they send in sparkies to check all appliances over here before you move in to make sure everything is 100%. I start work tomorrow which should be interesting. Looking forward to starting at 9am , getting an hour for lunch and finishing at 5pm. Work life balance seems to happen here as everybody has trains to catch so leaves on time. I am thinking my first week will be pretty cruisy though as my boss is away on holiday and I think I will be looking over guard books and recent ads.

The ads over here are horrible, really retail focused and quite honestly - ugly!! But hey they still have the NAB palette gridlines and still use the NAB font - somethings never change!! Think I need to get a copy of pig tales over here thats for sure. In fact all of the ads on TV as well as the programmes are pretty bad over here - worse than Aussie ads if thats possible!

Long weekend here at the end of the month - you have to love the fact they have bank holidays galore over here, so thinking of heading north up to Dublin for a few days.

Hope you are all well - over and out from us now we have finally updated the blog. Should be much more exciting stuff once we start travelling.

We caught the train from Settle back down to Leeds which is one hour. Trust me we are pros on trains now and we have only been in the country a week!

We went to some local Real Estate agents and looked at some flats/apartments. It was actually the same price to rent our own 1 bedroom in central city as it was to go flatting people outside the city. So we opted for our own place which is fully furnished and only a 10 min walk from town. We have applied for it and are just waiting to here once ref checks etc have been made. Bloody hope so as we had to pay a 175 pound admin fee which is non refundable!

Make it to London and then head to the tube station for our first ride on the tube. All I can say is thank god we weren't here when the heat waves were here as it is hot down there - but really efficient, a great way to travel. Get to Regent Street and within half an hour have all accounts sorted and credit cards ordered which was a relief.

Looked around London and looked in the shops this time too. Killed time just walking around taking everything in and headed to Walk about Bar in Covent Garden where we were catching up with Kylee who used to work at Total Productions for a few pints. Steve starting drinking round the world again and I stuck to cider for a most of the night but then the girls insisted I have a “snakebite” which as most of you know is half beer, half cider and black current. Lets say I thought it tasted like Benedrayl cough medicine! I am not a beer drinker but give me a montheths Radler over those any day. The girls assured me it tastes better after the first one and grows on you, so I will give you an update on that in a few months!

Kylee and I below - can you tell I have been on the go for days and am just a little tired.... but hey it's proof I was there!

Yah our first car ride with bags since we left! Helen picked us up at 11am and we drove north of Leeds for approx 1.5 hours to a little country town called Settle. Cute little town that reminds you of an old sea side settlement - just without the sea! Lots of little stone building and loads of stone walls in all the paddocks. Those drywalls would have taken incredible skill back then with no mortar and my god they must have taken them years and years to complete.

Now for those that know Helen the following should not be surprising. We get to her house, we dump our bags in the lounge and we wouldn't be there for more than 5mins before she is walking us down to her local pub! We meet a few of the locals as well as her boyfriend and promptly spend the next 6 hours there catching up. I stuck on Mathers cider and Steve decided to drink all the different beers he could. Needless to say he was the one feeling worse for wear the following morning.

Below is Helen's house. Hers is the one behind the red honda with the white door. A little three story place. Quite a few houses in this row.

The country side over hear looks alot like home really. Only difference is all the stone walls and houses!

In the county for one week and we had our own local. And of course it's called the Royal Oak even though it is located in Settle - go figure!

The following day we walked into town to the local HSBC to find we could have the cards sent up from Regent Street - if we could remember the 6 digit security numbers we used when we opened the account in NZ months ago - yeah right like that was going to happen! All our numbers at home are 4 digit security numbers, ad while we guessed no such luck. So we found the library which has the only internet connection and booked our train ride from Leeds to London again and a night in the local back packers so we can sort our accounts. It cost 98 pounds return for us and it scary when you convert that as it turned into a $300 train ride to finish opening our accounts. See why you need to arrive in London on a week day!

Well Steve being the Rugby fan he is manged to sky a bar called "Bok Bar" the previous night and the Aussie vs Springbok games was playing at 10:30am. So we headed down Baker Street to find this bar. Which we did an Steve had his first English pint at 10.40am. I on the other hand watched the first hal then headed down some side streets for a look around.

Time to head back to Hotel grab bags (all of them) and head to Kings Cross Station. We managed to catch a double decker bus bags and all and lucky we left anhour for a 20min ride as the London Marathon was on and loads of roads were closed, plus there was also major road works by the station. But we made it on the GNER for our 2 and 1/4 hour trip to Leeds.

Pulling into Leeds I thought OMG what a dump and we have just moved here! But upon further inspection days later I realised it is a total shopping mecca and lunch times could be very dangerous!!. Found the place we had booked in Leeds, but it was actually about 9 miles out of central Leeds, so jumped on another train (bags and all again!) and headed to Castleford. It also coincided with Leeds first local football match, so the train was packed with football yobo's. The accents up here are alot stronger than they are down in London though thats for sure!