The Mr X factor 6: December 7, 2005
Weekend fun thru Autumn + Dave turns 30!

Hello and Merry Christmas in advance! Well, I have now been here over 7 months - which seems like a fair while. Since last wrote, the main change has been that the weather has got colder and darker much earlier in the day. Daylight saving ended at the end of October, so it's not just 'grim up north', it's grim in London! Anyway, I can't complain yet - I'm only just through the first month of it! And compared to a windy Wellington winter it is comparatively calm and nice.

This 6th edition of the'Mr X-factor', is all mainly about the weekends:

Regarding the recent Rugby League slaughter of Australia (24-0!!), over a month ago, I went to the London match between the Kiwis & Great Britain. I went with mates Cuffy & Angela, + others. We led all game with some great tries, before Britain hit back in the second half, to draw close again. But then we finished them off to win convincingly. Had a great time, got some cool photos - including Stacey Jones right in front of us, nailing a sideline conversion, and one of the final scoreboard - 42-26 to us!

The following weekend was even better. I celebrated my 30th birthday on 5 November, with 15 friends, who were able to make it to a day of varied celebratory activities. By chance, these coincided with the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes and his motley crew getting arrested for the Gunpowder plot, foiled by a guy called Lord Monteagle, as some of you may remember, from my birthday quiz in Christchurch in 2000. Having had enough firework parties in my life, instead I organised a Monopoly tournament - in London! Well, what other game can be played in this great city?(Scotland Yard comes a close second).

I've cycled down heaps of the Monopoly streets in London, and caught the tube from the famous stations, so all the famous street names now mean so much more than they did before I got here. So, my marvellous plan took shape when I organised a venue (rent free!) - a pub near Marylebone Station, and from mid-day, we had 2 games going at the same time. These were our semi-finals, one of which I proceeded to win, having managed to gain my favourite set, the yellows (Piccadilly, Leicester Square & Coventry St) and stack it with houses.

Often you have to play about 5 games of Monopoly before you get a really exciting game which is very evenly balanced. But this game was a cracker. With the yellows being pretty much my only set, I was very vulnerable. At a crucial time I had £60 in my hand, the rest my other money invested in houses and I was sitting on Pentonville Road (the blues). Facing me as I threw were all the pinks and browns having 2-3 houses on each property. It was make or break - I threw a miracle double six to avoid them all and what would have been certain bankruptcy, and elimination from the final. Birthday luck? Who knows, but after that, people started landing on the yellows and I ended up bankrupting my sister, winning the game and progressing through to the much anticipated final.

Others weren't so lucky - Cuffy went to jail 6 times in the first few rounds of each game - unbelievable. I don't know how he made the final......Which, like the 1992 Backyard Cricket World Cup final, at the Edgecombe Oval in Linden, still needs to be played! We got the Monopoly semis underway at about 12 noon, but having begun the final, we then got sidetracked by a certain rugby match on the TV - the All Blacks v Wales at Millennium Stadium. Various other friends had arrived by now, so we packed up the Monopoly board and had some drinks and watch the All Black haka and subsequent demolition of Wales, led by Tana the Great. It wasn't exactly a close game, but always great watching the any NZ sports team, with fellow Kiwis, in foreign places. After that we went to a Chinese restaurant, and had a really nice meal - there were 15 of us - all Kiwis - a few British friends couldn't make it unfortunately. So we had a lovely time - wine, food, friends, good yarns and a really relaxing time with my 'surrogate Kiwi whanau' - some whom I have known since the early 80s, others, recent friends, and also my sister Nicola with me too! So, fond memories created, a really fun day, and I am glad I did something memorable and enjoyable, for the first birthday that I think I actually regret! 30 - mmmm...

The following weekend I went to Eastbourne on the south coast, with a large group from my church. For the previous 6 weeks, myself and some recently arrived Kiwi mates had been doing a Christianity explained course. It has actually been the most relevant & realistic explanation of the claims & experience of the Christian faith that I have ever heard. Part of the course was a weekend away, pretty much to see if the objective truth claims ofChristianity are matched by the equally important subjective experiences of the Holy Spirit, as described in the book of Acts. If you want to know what happened, email me, but in summary, it was exciting, beautiful and refreshing (Check out LIFECourse at http://www.stmaryslondon.com/).

The venue was a hotel in the retirement town of Eastbourne, where hundreds of marble white hotels, mainly for the elderly, line the waterfront. It was awfully cold, wet and windy on the Friday night, when we walked there from the train station, but quite lovely and peaceful on the sunny Sunday morning. It was a really great weekend away and we all had a great time on the Saturday night, dancing and singing karaoke. As some of you know, I can't resist the and the limelight of the karaoke microphone so I sang some of my favourite rock anthems - Pride (U2), Living on a Prayer (Bon Jovi), and Paradise City (G'n'R). Yeah, loved it!

Over two recent weekends' I have had Eva, friend from Germany that I met in NZ about 6 years ago, visiting London for the first time. One Saturday afternoon, we explored Westminster Abbey - which was amazing and inspiring. I haven't done much of the tourist trail in London for a while, so it turned out to be a fascinating day. We queued for not too long, then once inside, followed the other tourists on the designated route around the Abbey. It was quite amazing. I never realised it held such a treasure chest of tombs and monuments to so many famous Britons, as well as being the nation's church/abbey. We listened to the choir singing at the end for a while which was lovely, before heading outside for some photos and to the tourist shop for postcards et. al...

It was a cold, dull, early winter's day, so we found a nearby cafe with some nice hot soup before taking the tube to East London for an American thanksgiving meal, organised by friends. We had about 20 of us in a room having a roast dinner and a telling of the Thanksgiving story on the 384th occasion (and my first!). Was very relaxing and fun.

Once again, the next month or so will be very exciting. This weekend I go to Leeds to see a friend from NZ, Pierre - will be interesting to explore a bit up there, hopefully some biking, pub lunches and good catching up with a friend from my year at T-Coll in Christchurch in 2000.

Then on December 22nd I fly to Granada in Spain, where 6 of us from NZ will have Christmas, New Years and a 30th birthday for another one of us! We are hiring a house and will be there for about 12 days. Can't wait. Have been working hard up until recently, and with it being my first Christmas away from NZ, it will be great to be with friends, if I can't be home with family. We will hopefully do some exploring (Al Hambara & Gibraltar...) as well as getting into the outdoors and chilling out, reading, playing cards and board games and enjoying the break.

So, outside the weekends, work has been less busy of late, which has been most welcome. The main source of amusement, fun and banter has been my English colleague, Jon, who travels 2 hours EACH WAY to work each day, smokes like a chimney, has the driest sense of humour I've known, hassles me, and any other foreigners (including those north of Luton), and generally helps keep things relaxed. He has become quite irritated (he is old school, stiff upper lip, 'SNAGs are girls'...) by my regular micro pauses and stretches to keep my OOS under control, referring to them as my 'Maori war dance'!! So, with the help of my other colleagues in our office, we have been giving as good as we get, in the form of good natured, combined verbal retaliation.

One ironic thing to finish with, is that on Monday I FINALLY had my interview for my National Insurance Number - (IRD tax no.), four months after having started work - I have made many phone calls to the constantly engaged, overwhelmed and understaffed NINO number. Provided they don't find anything dodgy about me (karaoke addict?) it should get posted to me within 7 weeks.

I'll leave it there. Have a great summer or (winter!), and all the best for your weddings - James & Anita, Ben & Sisi, Tim & Hannah M. Would love to be there but won't be able to.

Blessings,

Dave

• Mr X factor 5: Late summer, 2005
  
  Hello again! Has been a while since I last wrote, but perhaps some of you are still reading my last news letter (book!). It was pretty large, but as with uni essays, if it's interesting/relevant, you can write a fair bit - I hope you did find it enjoyable/interesting.
  
  Well, I have been to France now! Spent a week in Bagneres du Luchon up in the Pyrenees at the beginning of September with a combo of Kiwis, SAffers and Germans. Was great, although getting there was a bit of a mission - I rode my bike from Bayswater to Victoria station to catch the train to Gatwick airport - and I was fully loaded up - with my pack, back pack and rather large bike bag to put my bike into, once at the airport. As I went through Hyde Park someone asked me if I was going parachuting - I could have been, with about 5 parachutes! Anyway, made it to Gatwick airport, met up with 2 other mates, took my bike apart and squeezed it into my bike bag - before heading through check in. The terminal scenes were just like those European airport TV shows - apart from me and Glenn acting like idiots! - busy, queues everywhere, with all sorts of Brits wanting to escape to the continent, waiting impatiently for their boarding call. Pretty inspiring looking up on the departure screen and reading all the exotic places planes are going - Malaga, Casablanca, Vienna, Rome...
  
  Our destination was Toulouse, where upon arrival we went to the wrong luggage conveyer, and then (for some reason) couldn't find our gear. Lynn, our only French speaker past 3rd form proceeded to say in perfect French, 'We are bicycles' instead of 'we have bicycles'!! Anyway we got our gear, squashed it (3 bikes, gear for 4 people, + us four) into the Renault Espace - just - and then drove for 2 hours, south to the Pyrenees, as the clock went past midnight. We arrived to a rather luxurious, new and spacious villa in the Ski/spa/mountain biking town of Luchon, and celebrated the start of our holiday with a midnight swim. The week that followed involved copious amounts of:
  
• Croissants + lots (like heaps) of other beautiful food, which I followed up with honey on delicious croissants/fresh bread, on most occasions, as I have atendency to do!
• Mountain biking, in some seriously mountainous territory, the highlight being a ride up to Lake D'oo- very similar to the cirque glacier cut tarns in NZ's Southern Alps, apart from the large number of walkers on the track and the quaint shop and café that was alongside, after a pretty steep 2 hour trek up the mountain.
• Beautiful, quiet peaceful and stunningscenery.
• Sleeping in, and waking up to beautiful silence that you just don't get in London
• Some cards, table tennis, reading, good music (Dave Dobbyn & U2 forever!) and just general chilling and unwinding from work back in the UK.

Driving on the RHS of the road was certainly weird. I didn't do any driving, but it was still an interesting experience, often looking the wrong way initially and expecting to see traffic coming over your right shoulder, when turning, and going anti-clockwise around roundabouts.

Oh yes, I have to mention the 'Thermes'. This is the spa/sauna in the town, dating back from Roman times, and built into the rock structure of the hillside, and emitting a Rotorua-like sulphuric smell. This was a must do, and what an unforgettable experience - based around the rather large differences between European and Antipodean cultures. We rocked up all keen to indulge in the sauna, until one of the ladies on the front desk informed us that board/surf shorts weren'tallowed....No, speedos and speedos only, are the order of the day at the 'Thermes'. This stopped 2 Kiwi and 2 SAffer lads dead in their tracks, as slowly we digested what we had thought we had heard. The girls were definitely amused at our reactions, and no doubt what was to follow.

We couldn't be culturally ignorant and not go, I mean this is what you laugh about and tell stories about later on. So, we duly paid our money and went through the mildly embarrassing and humbling procedure of being 'sized up' at the speedo hire desk, before trying to put them on, which, shall we say was a very tight fitting experience. When we got into the sauna itself, we all had a laugh and proceeded to chill out and have a relaxing time. Certainly, very amusing.

After 7 days, away I headed back to a noticeably colder London than I had left. After no cricket news about the 5th test, it was a relief to hear the Aussies had just been bowled out in their first innings on the fourth day, after another Flintoff induced collapse. The Ashes looked to be England's. The next day, England almost gifted it back to theAussies as they went through a minor collapse themselves before butter-fingers Piedersen saved the day with the bat. I rode home that afternoon from work with my radio earphones on listening to Jonathan Agnew et. al. describe, wallow and savour in the regaining ofthe Ashes, for the first time since 1987. Awesome to be here (the winning parade went past my window at work, the following day!), for an amazing and quite unbelievable series, which captured the nation's imagination - sport at its best. I pre-ordered and have already received the series DVD (10+ hours!) & official Daily Telegraph Ashes summary book, for enjoying midwinter, when summer seems far away.

Work-wise, I have finally got a reasonably permanent job (till end of March), which has given me some much needed solidity. Consequently I have been able to start putting down some roots over here. I am still working at the Crown Prosecution Service, now in my third job with them. The CPS is in the middle of a rapid national restructure - about the size of the South Island's economy. I'm PA to the overall Project Manager, in a busy, interesting and varied role. I replaced a temp who I had got to know quite well. When she decided to go and live in Switzerland, she passed on my CV, lined me up for an interview, and after that, no one else had a chance! It all got sorted outa couple of days before I left for my holiday in France - which was really great. So, I got a week's break between jobs!

My boss often has task lists with about 60 items on them, and she offloads some of that to me. She is clear, organised and we get on well, so I'm pretty happy and enjoying learning lots of new things. I'm happy also with the work travel I get to do - The new Business Centres we are setting up, are all outside London, so I've had trips to Nottingham, Leeds, York so far, and will also get to Liverpool, Cardiff and Exeter while I'm in this role. I'm sure the novelty will probably wear off, but it's all pretty exciting for now. Seeing the countryside outside London is pretty therapeutic too, reminds me that I need to keep planning and doing weekend trips away to various places.

Having a permanent job has meant my dossing days have finally come to an end. I spent the first 2 weeks back after France, adjacent to Victoria Park in East London, with a Kiwi mate and his UK wife (Steve & Ellie Moe), which was very enjoyable. While there I found myself a lodging situation through the Gumtree website. I am now living in Kilburn (NW6), with a Hungarian woman called Kath, her 18 yr old son and a recently arrived girl from Sweden, who replaced a very quiet Australian (oxy-moron!?). Its temporary up to Christmas, for various reasons, but it has enabled me to finally reclaim my gear from the four parts of London that I have stayed in up till now (Kensal, Tooting, Bayswater and Stratford), and sort all my stuff out in one room. Having all my gear together in one place again really is quite useful!

My room is pretty good too. Three floors up with a large window, it came with shelves, chest of drawers, cupboard, table, and TV! So I've been enjoying getting my own room sorted. Maps of Britain and Europe have this weekend been stuck on my wall to inspire more adventures and I have several little piles of stuff accumulated to sort through.

I went to my first English football match about two weeks ago. A colleague from work is a Crystal Palace fan, and they were playing QPR at Loftus Road on a Monday night. Given Chelsea's domination of the Premier league, its current 4-5-1 defensive orientation, lack of goals, pricey and unobtainable tickets, not too mention Aston Villa's worst ever start to a season in the top flight, I was pretty happy to follow Tim McKenzie's wise advice and get along to QPR's home ground (that's his team), to watch a game in a league with a bit more loyalty and not dominated so much by ££. After side-stepping past a hooligan who was being escorted out before the match had started, I found myself in the away supporters area, so cheered for Palace - the underdogs, and a team I have a bit of a soft spot for (sorry Tim!). We were end on, just to the side of the goal, only 3 metres from the pitch - so enclosed and closer up to the action - amazing. Palace went on to win 3-1, in a pretty enjoyable match, made most interesting by the various chants that I heard while watching the game (e.g. 'Two weeks to Brighton, Two weeks to Brighton'....ad infinitum - the local grudge match coming up soon, 'Ian Dowie's red & blue, Ian Dowie's red & blue'....ad infinitum - their heroic manager, who has survived despite Palace dropping out of the Premier league last season). It was all pretty entertaining.

And so to my second visit to France, just last weekend, where I caught up my two 'Euro-girls'! Both friends from a Bible study group I used to run in Weir House at Victoria University. I met Ingrid from Scotland (now living in Paris), and Eva from Germany, in Wellington in 1998/99. I had a great weekend catching up with them after the best part of 5 years without seeing each other. Also checked out Paris too! I travelled on the Euro-star train - very central & easy (Waterloo), compared to trying to get to a Nth or Sth London airport, and only a 2.5 hour trip.

Saturday included heading to the Eiffel Tower, which was pretty inspiring and really does embarrass Auckland's Skytower for beauty. Didn't get up it (next time), but we met our guide for a bike tour here (www.fattirebiketours.com) around some of the main sights of central Paris, with historical explanations and anecdotes from each sight. We covered the tower, Champs de Mars, le Militaire ecole, Musee du Rodin, Hospital de Invalides, Place de la Concorde, a lovely lunch in the Jardin de Tuilieres, Arc du Carrousel, the Louvre forecourt, among other things. Didn't go into any of them but just got the background of each place intro - this trip very much an appetiser, for future visits. It was a beautiful Saturday - blue sky and about 22 degrees. I really liked Paris, especially variety of architecture, the various lines of symmetry in the design of the city - buildings and avenues/boulevards line up giving it a really open feel, compared to London's streets....so, no doubt I will be going back.

Other features of the weekend were using the Metro alot, developing my French lingo ('Mon francais vamieux!), hanging and watching some expert petanque players in the Jardin du Luxembourg, being able to see (from the apartment I was staying in), the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, with its spotlights zooming all over the night sky, a bit of shopping at the local market (stayed in the 15th Arrondissement), where I picked up a very warm bomber jacket/polar fleece for winter for just 10 euros (will now be able to say, 'oh, I bought that in Paris' - how cool is that!), hanging and catching up with Ingrid & Eva, and generally just catching the vibe of the city. Left on Euro star on Sunday pm - back in London 6pm - easy!

Various other things to report:

• Have booked a 10 day Christmas holiday to southern Spain with 5 others from NZ (incl. fellow Tawa-ites, Rebekah Dennison & Renee Milkop) - we are hiring a house in the Sierra Nevadas. Am flying in and out of Granada. Will be great - a white Christmas!!
• Am going to NZ v GBR for the rugby league test next weekend, at Loftus Rd, with Angela & Cuffy - go the Kiwis!
• Am still cycling to work and enjoying it - getting a fair bit cooler and darker now. Clocks change next week I think, darkness and winter will envelope us over here, and I'll probably start to settle for the warmth of the buses & tubes, until spring.
• Am going to St Mary's church near Marylebone - checkout www.stmaryslondon.com - cool website & great worship music
• Have bought my first ever umbrella! A novel thing for a Wellingtonian - the rain just comes straight down here! Umbrellas really are a great invention! For those of us who survived Y2K and SARS, now we have bird flu to contend with. No doubt it will probably beoverrated - possibly a government conspiracy to help instil fear and aid them controlling us!!? Who knows!
• Missed watching my first Bathurst since 1990, on October 9th. Didn't affect the result though - another Holden win.

All for now, enjoy New Zealand's spring if your there! Hope you are well.

Dave :)

Mr X factor 4 - 20 August '05: Having a blast, but some not so easy things to work through...

Well Hello! The adventure continues over here, even though I've found a job and have been working for over a month. Working has been quite interesting & enjoyable, but some other stuff for me has not been great, so the first bit of X-factor No.4 is about some of the more difficult things I've been experiencing...

Unfortunately, a painful heel problem that I have struggled with for the last 2+ years has deteriorated quite significantly as a result of lots of walking over here. It started to get worse after about my first month, and opening heavy locks on the canals didn't help either. So that has been the source of ongoing frustration, pain & limitation (can't stand or even walk for very long without getting sore heels), and worry, given that the doctors haven't yet been able to offer a solution, and that it just continues to deteriorate :( Pretty despairing and soul destroying at times. Am seeing doctors, physio et.al. (again) over here in the hope that they'll be able to offer a diagnosis & solution that stops me being sore and enables me to do everything I want to be able to do as a tourist, but more importantly as a human!

Two things that have come out of this for me have been about hope and contentment. Hope that this will get better, despite not being able to see a way out, and contentment - to be content in all circumstances (that's not easy). There's been lots of prayer on my part, including some Psalm-like ranting & raving at God to get me out of this mess. So I am making the most of things, as best as I can and generally feel quite peaceful despite my predicament/uncertainty/being in limbo about how things will work out.

The three main things that have got to me most of late, have been my health (obviously), job and accommodation situations. Sometimes it all gets a bit too much, you wonder what you are doing over here, and it seems things aren't falling into place as you hope they would. You go through phases of uncertainty, every once in a while. So someone to chat with, who has been through it/still going through it, is always helpful. I realised phases of doubt on your OE aren't unusual, and that people over here, even after a year still go through it. Also, I read in my trusty OE bible, 'The Big OE Guide' by Bronwyn Sell - brilliant book for planning your OE - very, very informative, before I came over here, a quote from a Kiwi, who essentially said, no-one tells you about the difficult times. And another person I talked with soon after I got here said it took him 6 months till he felt settled over here.

So that's the other side to the excitement & adventure - not easy, but the flipside is that it makes the good moments pretty joyous, and its all about pushing through the difficult stuff and growing through your experiences. Given that I really can't walk much, to get around London I've bought a bike, and I am hardly using the tube at all. I bought it second-hand while on the canals and have really been enjoying cycling to and from work, and pretty much everywhere else! About once a week I get the tube or catch a bus, but mainly I'm cycling. In fact, each morning's bike ride to work feels like a stage of the Tour de France! My route to work starts at Lancaster Gate in Bayswater (immediately north of Hyde Park) and the cycle into work is takes about 20 mins. Get out your London maps folks! - I make my way to Marble Arch corner and then head down the willow tree-lined cycle path inside Hyde Park (beautiful!), adjacent to Park Lane. Then I get to Hyde Park corner, where I cross the road with the pedestrians and then cycle through the middle Hyde Park corner roundabout, and under the Wellington Arch memorial (just one of hundreds you pass daily around this city!).

This is where the Tour de France feel begins, as about 20 of us cyclists congregate at the pedestrian crossing waiting for the lights to change and the cars going round the roundabout to stop. As they turn red, we take off and start heading down Constitution Hill towards Buckingham Palace, spreading out as a peleton of cars catch and overtake us (briefly!). At the Palace we turn left onto the Mall, and head up to Trafalgar Square - it starts to get pretty congested as we head under Admiralty Arch, but we weave our way through the cars, around Trafalgar Square roundabout, and then head down Northumberland Ave (just Monopoly streets everywhere!) to the Embankment. Then I hang left at Hungerford Bridge and cruise along the waterfront to Blackfriars Bridge, where I turn left and head up to the corner of Fleet Street, turning right onto Ludgate Hill, where work is, just a minute's walk from St Paul's Cathedral.

Then I head into work, have a shower and start work about 8:45. Its been pretty inspiring cycling past tonnes of historical monuments, especially in the afternoon as I cycle back along the Embankment waterfront and look at the River Thames, London Eye, Big Ben and Houses of Parliament in the distance - just SO cool.

So what's my job? Well, temporary work has worked out reasonably smoothly, which has been really good. After I got back from canalling (start of July) it was job hunting time. Found most big temp agencies didn't want to know you if you didn't have office experience or couldn't touch type at 50wpm minimum (am forcing myself to learn now!). So once again I turned to my super OE guide and discovered The Kiwi Agency - sounded like me! - so I gave them a call and went in for the usual MS Word, Excel, Access & typing tests, and a chat. Got on really well with my agent (v. impt!), and he got me a job starting the following week at the Crown Prosecution Service (check out www.cps.gov.uk) in the city. So 8 days later (after security clearance stuff) I was in at work for a ten day assignment, which involved nothing else apart from mind-numbingly boring and repetitive filing! BUT it was a start, some income to stop my finances haemorrhaging, as they tend to do in London, and has turned into much more interesting work.

After a week of possibly the most boring work I've ever done, I got a call from my agent saying there was a job going on the 2nd floor - a month's work (has turned into 7 weeks) in the CPS Press Office. I had my CV on me when I went upstairs for the 'meet & greet', and they must have been impressed with it and thought that my Social Sciences teaching background would make me well suited to the job, because I got offered it over another Kiwi girl who was going for the same job. I found out last week that I will finish on 2 September, by which time I will hopefully be better at touivh typing (sorry, couldn't resits that!), have almost two months work experience in the civil service, a line manager who will be a good referee, and vital (even if overrated) 'London experience'.

The CPS Press Office has been in the thick of it recently - they deal with all the media inquiries regarding cases where the Crown is prosecuting people so with the London bombings, related arrests, extraditions, tragic accidental shootings, Muslim cleric hate preaching treason charges, as well as the numerous and rather frightening amounts of murders that happen over here, and all other crime, its never short of something going on. The job is varied and interesting. The six colleagues (including a Kiwi from Ngati Porou, who left Poverty Bay 17 years ago) in my immediate office are friendly, appreciative & work well together, so its a nice vibe.

Each day consists of a mixture of the following: photocopying & distributing Press Cuts (summaries of CPS related articles in each daily paper), distributing the morning dailies (national and local - London has tonnes of newspapers, about 15 different papers come in each morning, taking/transferring phone calls for the Press Officers, with details of the case, date, caller and query (this is the most important part of the job - I get calls from CPS regional offices & national/regional news agencies,all round the country, as well as places such as the Home Office, Attorney General's chambers etc...even had the Oprah Winfrey Show call the other day!, filing case summaries, updating computer files of cases, emailing/internally mailing out reports and briefings, summarising journal articles from weeklymedia/law/police magazines.

It's been busy at times, but not really busy compared to teaching (which I keep reminding myself when things get a bit busy and stressful). And in a way, its very good that it has been quiet at times, because there has been a certain cricket series happening, which I've been able to watch a lot of - at work! Any Press Office has to keep up with breaking news. So there are 3 TVs on all day in our office (tuned to BBCNews, ITV News, Sky News). But the one less than 5 metres from my desk has 'somehow' been 'stuck' onto the fascinatingly competitive Ashes cricket series between England and Australia, pretty much whenever it has been on (unless there's a big story breaking). So I'm pretty much watching ball-by-ball coverage of each day, as well as a bit of work in between overs (I was right about these cushy office jobs!). As Richie Benaud would say, 'Quite marvellous really!'.

Some of my colleagues aren't too sports-oriented, so I'm trying to educate them. In fact, one colleague who talks mostly about shoe shopping, saw the TV on Friday - and next to the bowler's name on the screen, it said 'Left arm orthodox'. She asked me 'is that his religion? !!!!!!!!!'. But now she's taking the note of the score a bit more, must be something to do with England actually putting up a decent fight.

So that is work, and I feel I've made a good start and that better jobs will come from this/or the experience I've gained from it. Through just talking with other temps I may have found another agency that could get me work for longer periods and at a better rate of pay, so I am investigating that as things wind up with this job. I have only applied for 2 permanent non-temping jobs thus far: as a truancy officer in Nth London (would I really want that!?) and as a tourism development manager for Sunderland (a place hardly mentioned in the Lonely Planet, so I'd have my work cut out!). I taught tourism for 3 years Tawa College, and have thought about getting into that industry before, so am still waiting to hear back.

I finish at CPS in 2 weeks time and have booked my first trip onto the continent, the following week! Am heading to the south of France with Glenn & Lynn Irving + 2 others. We have hired a house in Bagneres-du-Luchon up in the Pyrenees and are going to do some mountain biking, and general exploring and relaxing (there's a swimming pool there). It sort of came about by perfect timing more than anything else. They mentioned it about 2 months ago, and when my finishing date at work coincided, how could I refuse!!? So I am really looking forward to it and will dusting up on the 3rd form French 'J'a¡ tres ens', 'J'habite a Wellington', and all that!

I have been pretty well provided for with accommodation for the last month. Had a mate who went to Russia and offered me his room in his flat to use for a month - fantastic - and a real godsend, as I was getting sick of moving every week or so. Am working on a permanent flat now. Bayswater is right in Zone 1 and on the Central line. Living further out will be difficult to handle after this spacious, central apartment experience!

My most recent, 'exploring England' experience has been Birmingham. Spent a special weekend there with my parents and sister Nics, on 30-31 July. This is where my Dad grew up, so it was a personally guided tour with accompanying stories, courtesy of Dad, through the NW Birmingham suburb of Walsall, which included the schools, sports clubs, and various places Dad used to hang out at. Our family visited here in 1982, when Dad's mother was alive, so first time back for me since, and a few distant memories remained, but mostly all new.

Particular highlights were the street and house where Dad grew up (good old 25 Peakhouse Road), family friends a few doors down who nursed his Mum in her latter years, and also (actually the first stop of the day) a compulsory visit to Villa Park, home ground of Aston Villa FC (1982 European Cup Champions - when have Chelsea done that!?), where we went to the replica shop (I bought a Villa scarf and hat), and then, very excitingly, into the stadium, pretty impressive (holds 40,000+ I reckon, pitch like a billiard table and everything neat and coloured Claret and Blue). And man the seats are so close to the pitch - I'm too used to the Stadium in Wellington!

In the last 2 weeks a few Kiwis have visited here - have caught up with ex-flatmate Tim McKenzie, on a LOTR work trip, and I watched the All Blacks beat the Aussies with Mark and Abby Vink, at Clapham Junction last Saturday, then hung with a couple of other Kiwis in Putney, who I got to know briefly in NZ before I headed over here. Always good to catch up with people from back home!

That's plenty for now. Looks like an interesting election coming up, sad news about Lange, and hopefully we can win our home matches in the Tri-nations and win the whole thing!

Hope this finds you well.

Dave

Mr X factor 3: 7 July 2005 - day of the London bombings

Well, I’m safe from the terrorist attacks, and so is my sister, but sadly many others are not. Found out mid-morning & have been watching it unfold on TV today. Being so close to it changes your perception of it quite a lot – am sure the buses & tubes will have many nervous travellers for the next months – but then again nowhere is safe, really, although NZ is probably a good bet.

What a 6 weeks or so since I last emailed! Have been on a canal boat in the West Midlands with my parents for the last month, which has been thoroughly relaxing & enjoyable.

More about that soon, but first, a couple of things to clear up:
I am NOT married (see last blog), as some people have been thinking - Gretna Green was a place where people did get married about 2 centuries ago, and probably still now, but my 'wedding' was a fake/role play one. Besides, me marrying an Australian!!? Unlikely, but odds significantly higher if her family has land in Bathurst!

Also, re getting a job. Have had a deliberate jobless 10 weeks looking around & without a job, so I'm just about to start looking now. Went to a recruitment group called the ‘Kiwi Agency’ on Wednesday - and they've hopefully got me a brainless admin job for 10 days starting next week. It's a quiet time now with summer slowdown, and uni students out working too means excess supply & little demand, so I'll take what I can get. Job market apparently goes ballistic in October, but I've got a few other contacts & angles to work still, so we shall see... Am sure there’s a job which suits me well out there – I’ve just got to find it. Hopefully I'll be inundated with offers!

Forgot to mention in my last email a trip I did to Dover. I went there on a lovely Sunday with Rebekah Dennison (ex-Tawa neighbour!) & her boyfriend, Mark. Had 'sandwiches in Sandwich' - obligatory! Then hit Dover Castle, which was a really interesting afternoon's viewing - medieval & WWII history to it, great views of Dover harbour, and saw France for the first time (quite hazy!), then visited the famous white cliffs. A great day out finished with a noodle takeaway eaten in Greenwich Park on lovely spring evening & fantastic (like stunning vista) views ofEast London, Canary Wharf, Cutty Sark, Millenium Dome.

Now, the canalling! Summary: 269 miles, 170 locks, 28 days.

Started on 4 June (seems an awfully long time ago now) in Rugby, finished back there on 1 July. Travelled on a wide and pretty rural anticlockwise trip around the tourist mecca that is Birmingham. Canalling is a visit back to past times when things were a lot slower. FYI: Canals were made during the Industrial Revolution to transport lots of coal! Now they are a pretty busy tourist attraction (well at least in summer).

It took a couple of days to slowdown to the pace of it (3 miles per hour), but then you really enjoy the slowness of it. Although, it is a bit disconcerting to think you've been travelling all day and then glance at a map to find you have only gone from the equivalent of Tawa to Pukerua Bay, or perhaps not even that far!

Canal boating life consisted of just steering the boat for the first week or so - we had no locks (used by canal boats to go up/down hills) to do. I felt a bit like Russell Coutts looking ahead for obstacles & other boats, hanging onto the tiller, except, when I glanced behind me there was no Team NZ Black Magic NZL20 either stranded, sinking or de-masted anywhere in sight.

Although...there was some brief chaos from time to time: Here's an excerpt from my diary about a week into it: 'Mum and Dad went shopping for groceries, leaving me in charge of the boat, for an hour or so. This was when I had my ‘adrift & out of control’ moment. We were moored partly in a winding (u turn bay) – perhaps we shouldn’t have been there? A guy in a 60 foot boat wanted to turn around, so I cast off and motored forward only to find that the only thing resembling a brake is the reverse gear, and then the boat easily gets out of shape & drifts a lot - like a V8 Holden in the wet! I soon realised that stopping, docking & mooring up by one's self was going to be pretty difficult. I was just going to gently motor forward a bit but before I knew it the bow was heading towards the reeds on the other bank of the canal. Switching the motor into reverse & trying to stop simply left me drifting towards the bank & grounding it, so I puttered up to the next mooring spot (it turned out to be the last one available) & in mild panic glanced round to see a friendly wave from ‘Mr Experienced, I own a 60-foot boat' man. I slowed and docked to the side (gently!) then reversed to a stand still (pretty essential with a 2 tonne boat), then leapt off the boat in a hurry to hammer in mooring pins at both ends & tying the ropes from the boat to the new anchor points on the side. At one stage the stern was anchored but the bow was not and was once more drifting towards the reeds on the other side - and the bow rope wouldn't reach the shore. My saviour was the middle rope which I grabbed in the nick of time, leapt for shore again & hauled the boat in - the Dover was safe! Finally secured at both ends I texted Mum & Dad with a less dramatic summary, explaining I had had to moor a little further up the canal!'

It wasn't like that all the time! Overall, I was well and truly pampered on the canals - it has been pretty leisurely - life consisted of sitting up the front sun bathing, admiring the beautiful English countryside, reading, listening to CDs & the radio, thinking about lots of stuff. This has been punctuated with lock opening & steering the boat (when I could prise the tiller out of Dad's hand), as well as superb & plentiful salad lunches (brilliant Mum!), pub meals & drinks, then back to the same relaxing routine in the afternoon.

My sister Nicola joined us for 3 days over one of the weekends, which coincided with Dad’s birthday. He got lots of canal souvenirs as presents, while Nicola also managed to find some canal badges, which cleverly summarised our respective roles on the boat:
Dad - Admiral,
Mum – Galley Slave,
Nics –Miss Chief,
Me – Cabin Boy.

I think we mostly remembered to take them off when we went ashore!

The evening routine was as follows: a lovely meal onboard or in another canal side pub - they are everywhere – often called ‘The Swan’ or The King’s Head’ etc... Meals were regularly followed by in the evening by the much anticipated & highly competitive Scrabble battle - we probably played every second night - honours shared pretty evenly - and disappointingly, no 7 letter words, worth a bonus 50 points, were put down at all, in one month.

Our TV worked for the first week then lost reception, so I tuned into ‘BBC Radio 5 Live’ quite a lot, which was really enjoyable - the big sports events get a lot of radio coverage over here - in particular the Lions tour (listened to the first test on radio - bit of a non-event in terms of closeness, what was Tana doing??), Formula 1 - with Alonso doing so well, interesting for the first time in 7 yrs (though some of you would disagree!), the Wimbledon fortnight & the new ‘Murray-mania’, the Aussie cricket team in town (I was listening with joyful disbelief when they lost to Bangladesh), pre-Ashes talk - England being talked up all over the place. Also an unforgettable late night was spent listening to commentary of Michael Campbell holding off Tiger Woods to win the US Open - pretty special - I imagine that got some good coverage back home. Good on him! Would have loved to have watched those approachshots & massive putts he sank.

I met some Birmingham locals in nearby ‘Hopwas’ one night. We had moored up near this town, so I went to the local pub & started talking to a guy with an England rugby top on (Trev). He used to paint the F1 cars for the Jordan team, so there was plenty of sports chat. When we got onto football his mate (Todd) asked what team I supported. I replied with Aston Villa - Birmingham team my Dad grew up supporting - pretty much an unfashionable, mid-table premier league team who hasn't won anything since 1982 (European Cup!!). Hardly anyone in NZ supports them, so it was a pretty cool thing when Todd's eyes lit up and he showed me his tattoo on his neck saying A.V.F.C. & said he had been a season ticket holder for ages. We celebrated with another round!

We had a day exploring Worcester after about 2 wks. I hired a bike, cycled around the city & went to Worcestershire Cricket ground – where NZ players Glenn Turner & John Parker used to play county cricket. Checked out the massive Cathedral, and Commandery – scene of a battle between Cromwell & Charles II that the King lost a few centuries ago. Met up with some other canallers from Oxford in the evening – went out for a meal & drinks rather impromptu – was really good fun.

With time on my side on the canal boat, in Worcester, I bought a couple of photo albums with the card pages & tissue paper in between each page. So I have started my trip album - a combo of photos, postcard & various souvenirs I have picked up - a pretty slow process – perfect activity while canalling! I 'd rather do it now than whenever I get home and have 2000 photos to organise.

Made it to Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare terrritory, towards the end, which was alive with tourists – moored up in the basin adjacent to the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatres – went and saw ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, which was really enjoyable.

By now the hot, fine weather was pretty consistent, locals calling it a heat wave, although I wouldn’t go that far! When we finished canal trip 1 July I caught a bus (called coaches over here!) back to London....

And that is where I’ll leave things for now. There were plenty of more anecdotes, but I can’t include everything –otherwise you wouldn’t do any work! More later!

Happy holidays Tawa College staff! I hope any family, friends, colleagues you know in London are safe.

Dave :)

Mr X factor 1: Arrival in London: 29 April 2005 - First impressions

As Martin Tyler says 'Anticipation turns to action now!'

It certainly has. Arrived Heathrow 12nn thursday 2 wks ago (England time). Flights good - not much sleep but both Air Tahiti & Virgin had movie/game screens for each seat, so not too bad. My sister Nicola was there to meet me. Wow! How cool is that walking out to throngs of people hanging over the rails, all looking at you - felt like a bit of a superstar, thought of raising my bat like I'd scored a century, but...had no bat.

Nics was there - a pretty special moment. Caught 2 tubes to get to Kensal Rise (NW) - walked to Nics' flat through rows & rows of terraced housing -so crammed in & claustrophobic - its just so different! I expected speeding cars from 'The Bill' to come hooning round the corner at any second, with the film crew following. Slept for 4 hrs when I got in then we went out for a meal & catch up yarn.

Activating my bank account. That was Friday's first task. Caught bus into the city. When I arrived at Marble Arch double decker buses made sense all of a sudden! Why not triple!? So many people, streets so narrow, & filled with taxis, buses, & cars, going nowhere fast. So here I was on the Monopoly board streets! First of all the Greens: Oxford, Bond, and Regent, all very busy - & so different to what I imagined.

At the bank: On the third floor in the waiting room sit 8 quiet Kiwis/Aussies - never seen us as quiet (overwhelmed/shy/out of comfort zone!) as that. I wait half an hour then get my account sorted. While waiting I meet an electrician guy from Rotorua. We get chatting & afterwards get a feed & sit down opposite the giant screen at Piccadilly Circus to take it all in. I always loved the yellows, so this is where I have my first photo in London taken!

During my first week I hit the buses - need to feel I know the topography of London (how geographical!!) - how things fit together. Did a cool bus tour of the city's main sights (as our family did in '82!), + a boat cruise on the Thames. Then jet lag hit & I had a few bad nights lying awake on NZ time, over that now but I have no idea how the Super 12 players travel & play within a week!

London definitely overwhelms - nothing like it in NZ, scale-wise, history-wise. Felt very aware that every pace I took was a step over tonnes of history. Also, it seemed all frantic & concrete ridden, until I found Hyde Park one day - walked across it - stunned by the serenity it had even though the city was not far away. Saw first squirrel!

After my first week I went to Southampton for the weekend to catch up with some NZ friends who have been here a year. Was good to see a bit of countryside on the train, chill out & just chat with other Kiwi mates about first impressions of the UK & its differences. Went to the Southampton maritime museum - the Titanic was a main theme (left here for Ireland before maiden sailing in 1912), as well as the massive scale of the port back in its heyday. Interesting (for me - maybe not you!). Also visited Portsmouth (bought first patch for my Scout blanket! - 200 patches since 1985, international section opening soon!), which had a pretty cool waterfront development for tourists - the HMS Victory from the Battle of Trafalgar was there (or a pretty fine replica!) - massive & stunning - started going mad with the camera!

Finally, this week. Moved to my mate's place (Danny, from epic cricket trip to Oz to watch Black Caps kick butt in 2002) in Tooting. Cool flatmates made things welcoming & fun - roast dnr & first night! Bought a week long travel card for underground + bus network.U/G = faster. No sign of Mr X yet! Went to movies in Leicester Square - my new favourite square in London! Really nice & quaint, especially when compared to Trafalgar Square!

Visited Museum of London yesterday, 2 hrs covered about a third of it. Quite good being here for VE day- a few displays are all around the place. Today I'll head back to the museum. Have bumped into my first 'Kiwi I know who I didn't know was here'. Last night went to a Christianity explained course (Alpha) at Holy Trinity Brompton, met a girl from Vic uni days - a classic moment.

Have decided solo tourism gets a bit lonely after awhile - its good to have someone to bounce your ideas/reactions off. So have booked on a 5 day road trip tour next week. Here's where I'm going: Sherwood Forest, York, Hadrian's Wall, Edinburgh, lake District (Read Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome - great books I grew up with, set here), Liverpool, North Wales, Stratford, Oxford - am sure I'll enjoy it,+ people have said its filled with other newbies to London, good for getting some connections & that once you start working you have little time for it.

So, I'm still totally excited about being here & looking at lots of stuff. Am feeling much more ready to get stuck into checking things out without being overawed b/c I don't know where I'm going! Am thinking I would like to live + work in London - quite funky, tonnes of stuff to do/see, & heaps of people to hang with once you get set up with flat & mates. But who knows, time will tell....

Hope this hasn't been boring, If you don't want to get my group emails let me know. I haven't gone away just to send emails every 2nd day, that's why I've waited a while to send this. The Mr X thing is about a board game called Scotland Yard - based around London! Hope you are well, go the Hurricanes! Love, Dave:)

Mr X factor 2

Walk on…walk on… with hope in your heart…
And you'll never walk alone...You'll never walk alone!!!

Hi everyone – that was the Liverpool anthem. Yes, the last fortnight has been dominated by football here & Liverpool in particular. Coming back to win theEuropean cup on penalties, after being 3-0 down at half time, was awesome - I watched it in the Walkabout pub in central London (Temple) with about 2000 others! Was thinking at half time: 'hope in your heart/nevergive up'. And they didn't...And they triumphed.

It was pretty awesome to be here for. Brought back fond 'pre-Man Utd being any good' memories of the Liverpool of the glorious '80s - Rush, Dalgleish, Barnes,Whelan, Johnston, + for those of you HLMs & women, who did Linden School, Stuart Riddle! I also watched FA Cup Final a few days earlier, with some Antipodeans in a flat in Bethnal Green. Was going for Arsenal (not with any passion though), and they got home on penalties too, even though Man Utd deserved to win – but United have done that to plentyof others before too.

Anyway, enough of football I hear you say! I've been in Wokingham (Berkshire) this bank holiday weekend, hanging with Glenn & Lynn Irving, NZ friends from when I was at University working with the Christian fellowship group TSCF. Haven't seen them since 2000, so lots of catching up on the last 5 yrs to do! Coming over here has been really good for catching up with people I have not seen for ages. It's lovely & rural, quiet & relaxing. Glenn works instructing kids at an outdoor pursuits centre, so I had a go at Archery yesterday – lots of fun & able to get quite accurate –when the target is only 15m away! Also we went for a 20km mountain bike ride through the Swinley Forest yesterday pm, lots of technical single track & dropoffs, good fun.

On Saturday my parents arrived from NZ for a few months. Myself & sister Nicola had brunch with them near Marble Arch, where we discussed what we will do together over the next few months. I will be canal boating with them within the next week, around the West Midlands. Then in late-July we will go to Birmingham to get a personal tour from Dad, where he grew up - should be pretty interesting & special.

Since my last email I've had a couple of exciting & busy weeks – main highlight being my 5 day van tour round much of the UK. We departed on a Monday, heading to York, stopping at Nottingham Castle, Sherwood Forest & having a pint at the oldest pub in England "Ye old trip to Jerusalem" - 1189AD. Our driver knew a lot about the history of the places we went to, and also had accompanying songs written about the stories behind places we went to, so I really enjoyed the history-story telling side of things.

Also enjoyed just driving thru the countryside & observing the landscape types & seeing it change slowly as we went from region to region. I must say that once you get out of the cities and off the M1-40-odd motorways (dominated by massive trucks everywhere, going at about 120kmh). England seems pretty unpopulated, considering it has 50 million people.

There were 7 of us on the way north, 10 on the way back. Met some cool people, but unfortunately most of them are leaving the UK within the next month. However it was still a lot of fun touring in a group. Got on with a couple of Aussies girls best, as well as a 2 Canadian & Sth African girls (not many blokes on this trip!). After a Viking feast (complete with Viking hats & mead!) in York we headed to Durham Cathedral (huge) & Alan Shearer territory (Newcastle) briefly, before getting to Edinburgh, heading over the border (obligatory crossing the border/flag waving/bagpipes + Proclaimers blaring/photo taking ceremony).

I liked Edinburgh – very funky feel to it. Castle looked awesome – no time to go inside - must return sometime. Had a walking tour of a few places with a local, who gave us a completely biased & thoroughly entertaining version of Scottish history. I found the story of Deacon Brodie - Mr Jekyll & Hyde - pretty fascinating. Had "Haggis, Neaps & Tatties" for my first meal in Scotland – had to do it, then indulged in some whiskey tasting – quite a lot of variation in taste & strength between each type of whiskey.

I also met up briefly with Ken Miller, now living in Edinburgh, mate from Tawa College days, & my playing partner when we dominated our 500 cards tournament in 1996-97, (still going, twice annually) contested byabout 8 of us old boys from Tawa College 7th from in 1993. We went for a drink at the Jekyll & Hyde pub - found the hidden toilets!

Day 3 – headed to Gretna Green, where suddenly I got married! My wife is Sarah Witteveen – Aussie girl. Don't stress or send presents! This was a shotgun wedding, the likes of which occurred back in the day when the marriage age in England was 21, and in Scotland it was 16 – young lovers eloped over the border to get hitched, at this place.

Next we drove south & headed up Kirkstone Pass (complete with fields split by hundreds of rock walls, built by farmers over the years, stunning landscape) for a beer at one of the highest pubs in England (Kirkstone Pass Inn - evoked memories of the Cardrona Hotel in NZ). Then we drove through the Lake District, famous, supposedly for Beatrix Potter & William Wordsworth. But for me its Arthur Ransome territory – author of the Swallows & Amazons, sailing adventures on the lakes books, which I read & loved as I grew up. Also, this was Donald Campbell territory, who died on Coniston Water breaking his own 300kmh+ world waterspeed record, back in 1967 (song 'Rocket Man' by Elton John is about this).

Then we headed to Liverpool, where my Dad went to Uni! Drove past Anfield & Goodison Park (got a photo for you Rob!) – built in the middle of the run down old inner suburbs & only 500 yards away from each other. Visited Mathew St & the Cavern Club, where the Beatles made it big with the Mersey Beat back in the 60s, even got a Cavern Club patch for my Scout blanket – will have a lot of sewing to do when I get back to NZ!).

Then had a night out in Liverpool – a pretty downtrodden & hassled place by rest of the English – a society torn apart by Margaret Thatcher's policies of the 80s, & the decline of the shipping trade in Britain. It looked pretty down & out driving thru it - & I think I have a soft spot for it, because we had been told its sad story when compared to its glory days, on the way in – that’s why I was so stoked the won the European Cup last Wednesday!

Day 4 consisted of Wales mainly. Started with a boat trip across the Mersey River, scene of thousands of ships unloading/loading people & freight in the past. Massive docks, quite a wide river. Then into Wales –first stop Conwy Castle – built in about 6 years by 1500 men, in the 1200s I think – quite mind blowing - they just loved building castles & churches back then!After that we headed to:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Yes, you read right! – LlanfairPG for short. Here we said Boradd (hello), Dioch (thank you), Hoeill (goodbye) to the locals.

After that we drove through Snowdonia, headed for Stratford-upon-Avon for the night, where we saw a Shakespeare play (gotta do it! - Twelfth Night – pretty good). Final day consisted of Chipping Norton briefly – cool name & posh! Then to Oxford (pretty vibrant, studenty place – students & bikes everywhere). Had a thoroughly entertaining & interesting walking tour of the Uni – learnt about the St Scholastica's Day Massacre –unbelievable!).

Then we visited the grave of one JRR Tolkien, before having a trip quiz, singing the Vindaloo Song (English football anthem – easy for drunk hooligans to repeat endlessly) again, as we headed for London, to finish a busy, fascinating & fun week.

Was good to get home – well back to Danny's in Tooting. The last week back in London has been about museums & just enjoying travelling round watching things - finally finished the Museum of London (took 5 goes - after 2 hrs your brain is pretty fried each time). Last section got me thinking of how my old colleagues & classes at Tawa College are (Hi guys!) –the Industrial Revolution exhibits were all related to what I've been teaching in a 3rd form Social Studies unit for the last 4 years!

On Thursday I started on the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Sq - more history & heaps of portraits funnily enough! – very good explanations of each portrait helped to understand various phases of British history & which Henrys/Marys/Richards/Edwards did what, when! Friday was hot – about 30 degrees, summer's coming! – so back to the NPG for airconditioning & more portraits.

That’s enough for now! There has been general alarm here with the Lions almost losing to Argentina last week, I imagine the hype is building now that they are in NZ – will be watching those tests while canalling – off to the local pub/café for early morning All Blacks victories & traditional English cooked breakfast –mmmm…!

Until then, love to all!

Dave