The Mr X factor 9: August 23, 2006

Summer fun!! June - August '06.

Hi all

Well, Def Leppard went off!! Went to see them at the Hammersmith Apollo, mid-June, with Cuffy, Nics & Angela. It was metal heaven: black T-shirts, '80s long hair, and black jeans everywhere - I bought my own Def Leppard T-shirt too! They played all their classics off their legendary Hysteria album of the late '80s - the first cassette I ever bought! Sounded fantastic, and yes, the one arm drummer is still in the band!

In late June, my Godmother, Cathy, arrived from Auckland for a holiday. Nics and I went to dinner with her and our 'surrogate aunt & uncle' over here, Anne & her partner Colin. It was pretty special to see a dear family friend over here.

And, then there was the World Cup, which = heartbreak for England. It was pretty impossible to ignore over here - 3 games everyday - fantastic. Also made more intriguing with my inclusion in Ben Fountain's picking competition from NZ! I managed to watch heaps of games and for all the England matches, get to the pub or our church (which said BYO beers, & organised a massive screen to project the game onto).

Over the month, the radio talkback & TV was filled with it all sorts of opinions about England's form in particular, and essentially they were quite poor (tiredness, the heat, the WAGs - wives & girlfriends - all of the above..., who knows) and it all ended in tears against Portugal on penalties, as you could have predicted. I thought only Owen Hargreaves, Joe Cole, Aaron Lennon & Ashley Cole played consistently well for England. Best game? - Italy v Germany. Was glad to see Italy win - what was Zidane thinking?

Headed to Cambridge in early July, for a weekend with Paul & Becs Roper-Gee. We started with morning tea, and a good chin-wag at the Orchard Cafe - lovely picturesque garden scene, filled with relaxing slopey deck chairs & tables, developed for Cambridge students to R&R a hundred or so years ago. Nice!

That afternoon we went to Ely, in 'the Fens', for a look around the Cathedral & town. It was here that I got a text from my Dad in NZ, saying that baby No.3 was on the way for my sister Wendy & her hubby Murray. Ben Malcolm Cameron was born some time after and I am now the proud uncle to 3 beautiful little kids - Adam, Amelia, Ben - congrats W&M!!

After a pub meal and couple of pints alongside the 'River Great Ouse', the big entertainment for the night in Ely was the Ely folk festival, which had some good live music to listen to and was a pretty cool time.

It all got a bit more formal though, 3 days later, when I went to the Queen's Garden Party at Buckingham Palace! Angela, my kiwi mate who works in NZ House over here, put us into the ballot for 2 of the 100 tickets that get allocated to NZers every year, and we were successful! A few weeks prior to it I got my official invite from Her Majesty (as you do), and the day was beautifully blue and warm as I met Angela and her friend Kara, had some photos taken of us in our dressed up Garden Party gear atop New Zealand House - stunning 360 degree views of London - before hailing a taxi, and heading down the Mall to the Palace.

After clearing security we went in through the front entrance, and walked towards the archway leading us through to the inner sanctum - just as we got near, two guards did their 20 yard march to stretch their legs, and we looked around to see tourists staring at us enviously through the iron fences that plebs like us rarely get past! We walked into another large courtyard, out of view of the public now, and then across a really long corridor - inside the Palace itself, with red carpet, gold covered furniture, and all sorts of portrait paintings of monarchs of the past and their families - lots of bling!

After filing past all this we made it out to the backyard - and what a backyard the Queen has! Immediately in front of us was a beautiful lawn about the size of a football field, pretty busy with people, taking a stroll, milling about, chatting and enjoying the sunshine. Down the left hand side of the lawn was a hundred yard row of marquees (huge, but not Pakistani - couldn't resist that for you cricket fans!), all serving afternoon tea - sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, the Queen's tea and lemonade. Lots of people were queuing up for that. We joined them.

In front of these serving tents there were hundreds of people sitting at the tables, eating and chatting with each other. On the right side of the lawn there were a couple of smaller tents, reserved for serving tea to the Queen & her entourage, as well as another one for serving the invited diplomats. The lovely sounds of four bands, located at each corner of the large lawn, and playing one after the other, filled the air and added to the rather smashing atmosphere!

We ended up strolling across the lawn and found a some chairs to sit on near the decently large Palace pond. All in all, there must have been about between 4-5000 people there. We had our lemonade, & bites to eat (scrumptious) and then went for a walk around the rest beautiful of the grounds - which stretch out towards Hyde Park corner and Belgravia/Lower Grovesnor Place. While strolling around the estate, it struck me how great this place would be for playing a mass game of go-home-stay-home! And I also wondered if Charles had ever kicked a football around the back lawn with William and Harry!

Actually, I could have asked him this, because about half an hour later I was a metre from the future King of England! He and his wife Camilla were milling meeting various people and talking to some of them. All quite exciting though!

It all came to an end after 6pm, when everyone started filing out the way they had come in - through the Palace for one last time (probably!) and out the front gates again. There ended an exhilarating and quite unforgettable afternoon.

The following weekend I went to the 'Toast New Zealand' wine, beer, food and culture festival, held at Regents Park. This was quite different! I went to this with Hamish Stockwell - Wgtn mate from our 2002 cricket trip to Oz - recently arrived from NZ. This a was really cool, with the headline act being NZ music legend, Dave Dobbyn, belting out his classics, to 4-5000 expat Kiwis, wallowing in an afternoon of Kiwi culture.

It was lovely to indulge in some Monteiths & Macs Gold beers, as well as the L&P & K-bars - mmmm!! The other lasting memory was watching blow-up kiwis and sheep being crowd-surfed at the mainstage as Dobbyn played Slice of Heaven, Loyal and all the rest of his great songs. Kai pai New Zealand!!

Two weeks later, I was off to Cardiff, for work - well, sort of. It was the annual Crown Prosecution Service Sports Day, held for its staff from all around the country. This was held on the Friday, so I trained up on the Thursday night, had 2 nights in a hotel and one in a backpackers, using the weekend to explore Cardiff. The sports day was pretty cool - just like a school athletics day - with heaps of other sports going on as well- 5 aside football, swimming, rounders, tennis, darts, pool, dominoes, quiz - all sorts!

For some of us from our team, the first event was actually getting to the venue - this turned out to be a complete nightmare - we must have come last in that!! Essentially, the venue was not just 1 mile out of town as we thought, but 5 miles NE of the city - after driving around aimlessly for an hour and asking for lots of help. The problem was that every large recreational building/sports venue in Cardiff starts with 'N.W.I.C...' so we got the wrong one, and two out of our three cars had 'sat nav', but our one didn't and we got split up at the lights - it went all pear-shaped from there!

This meant we got there late, and I missed my pool tournament. After following our football team, by the end of the day we were all pretty knackered & ready for the quiz, in the bar - which seemed to host a few competitions all day! Everyone congregated and various people hobbled in with injuries from perhaps their only sporting venture since last year's sports day! We started poorly in the quiz, finishing mid-table (there's always next year!), but it rounded off a fun day's sports, and I also got to meet various colleagues from around the country, that I email or talk to on the phone quite regularly in my job.

Sampled the Cardiff night life in the evenings - it all revolves around the massive Millennium Stadium in the city centre - you can never not see it, wherever you are - feels like it has fallen out of the sky and landed smack in the middle of the city. It crossed my mind that I do need to get back here for a rugby test some time - must be amazing inside. On the Saturday I went to to the Walkabout pub in the morning to watch the Bledisloe Cup rugby game - the mighty All Blacks beat the Aussies again - although it was close this game: 13-9. I joined some Kiwis for it and Xavier Rush was also there!

In the afternoon I checked out Cardiff Castle and went on the tour there. On Sunday morning I went down to Cardiff Bay (really interesting to explore) to see some of the tourist attractions on the redeveloped waterfront, quite different now from it's heyday when it was the coal shipping capital of the world. It was really nice to be next to the sea and feel the breeze in the air.

I have been busy! Because the following weekend I went out to Ashford in Kent to visit Kiwi friends Tony & Rachel Yung, over here this year from NZ. I used to teach with Tony at Tawa College, so we had lots of TC gossip to catch up on, and also notes to compare on life over here. On the Sunday we visited Leeds Castle (very nearby, not up north!). This was advertised as 'the finest castle in England', and it didn't disappoint - amazing grounds, a huge moat, magnificent castle - with stunning interior, set out as it would have been - lots of paintings, sculptures etc... - really brilliant.

Also, visited the Cabinet War Rooms, in Westminster, the other weekend, with some friends from my church home group. These also have a museum dedicated to the life of Winston Churchill. Both, absolutely fascinating & a must see, I reckon.

As well as all this there have been quite a few summer BBQs and parties to go to - catch up meals at a restaurant in Brick Lane, house warming parties, BBQs (although the heat has gone out of summer already - not much over 20 degrees now), going away parties for friends going downunder for a month, drinks at bars around Bank station after work... all sorts of parties! As one friend put it - 'my social life hasn't been this good since university!!'

As well as this, about 3 weeks ago, an ex-flatmate of mine, Rob Edgecombe arrived from NZ to do his OE over here. He got through his jetlag admirably, & spent the first 10 days dossing at my spacious (not!) flat. For those of you who know Rob, it was a great excuse to go and see Jimmy Barnes in concert (Rob's 4th time seeing the Aussie rock legend - my first).

Finally, three things to finish with:

1. From this Friday I have a week off work and am going to the Austria Alps. I won a trip there in a travel magazine competition - return tickets by coach & 3 nights accommodation for 2, at a place in the central Austrian Alps - Bad Gastein - http://www.euro-youth-hotel.at/ (I think). Can't wait - work has been mad for 3 weeks and I am due a break. Will be going with my flatmate & NZ mate, Cuffy, so we are both looking forward to some mountain air, mountain biking, white-water rafting, day trips to Venice &/or Salzburg, a chance to explore another bit of Europe & chill out!


2. Am going to an All Blacks test - my first ever - in November - actually am going to two! England at Twickenham on Nov 4 & then Wales at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, on Nov 25. Both should be pretty awesome experiences.


3. And, I am coming home next March/April - for 3 weeks - get the cards tournament in the diary Dunc! Booking this trip has made me thing about home a bit. When it comes around, I will be so excited to come back to Aotearoa, friends & whanau, for a few weeks. I arrive in NZ on 30 March, and leave 20 April - with a 3 day stop over in Hong Kong on the way back to the UK.

That's all for now. Hope are well, wherever you are. God bless :)