The Mr X factor: Dave's travels to London & beyond

The Mr X factor 10: December 3, 2006

September - December '06

Austria - busy September - Paris - Oxford - new job! - cycling Belgium - 31st birthday - All Blacks v. England - Johnny Clegg concert - ABs v. Wales - tribute to Peter Brock

Hi all

My last ‘X-factor’ was in late August, and now we are rapidly heading to Christmas! Here are my adventures from the last 3+ months – settle in…

As I wrote last time I was about to head off to Austria, on a holiday I won through entering the TNT travel mag competition (www.tntmagazine.com). Well, it was a great break away. I went with flatmate and fellow Kiwi, Simon Cuff (aka Cuffy). I won return travel and 3 nights accommodation for 2, so we booked 3 more nights and took the week of the August Bank holiday off work. The only draw back was that it was coach travel to Austria – 20+ hours of it, each way!

So I got equipped: With sleeping tablets, sounds and my 1300 page historical novel of London, by Edward Rutherfurd – brilliant, reading it for the second time - I managed to get some pretty good reading and overnight sleep on the journey. The coach trip involved heading under the Channel Tunnel – a pretty interesting set up of loading all vehicles needing to cross, onto the train-like carriers, for the 30-minute trip under the English Channel. Essentially this was a border patrol, so quite a closely guarded operation.

After driving through France, Belgium, my first experience of Germany was 15 minute break at about 3am, where, half asleep we stumbled into a roadside café and bought a very nice baguette! We arrived in Munich at about 10am, then caught the train south, towards Austria and the Alps.

This was a 3-hour trip, in one of those trains with numerous compartments, each seating 6 – just like in Murder on the Orient Express – classic! In our compartment I met Hannalore, and with phrasebook at the ready, practiced my German for the first time. We were soon joined by 4 Austrian teenagers, heading to Italy for their last weekend before school went back. They could speak about 3 languages each, as well as beer language – in the spirit of Austrian hospitality, they shared some beers with us and we had some interesting yarns about Austria, NZ, football and travelling. We passed through Salzburg and into Upper Austria, which had some pretty fantastic mountain scenery. Really stunning - big NZ thoughts happening here.

Upon reaching our destination of ‘Bad Gastein’, we checked into our hostel. The week consisted of various adventure sports, including the highlight of paragliding down the valley – a 1000m drop in about 15 minutes, from high up a 2000m mountain, reached via a gondola. Pretty weird concept, running off the side of a hill, then being airborne and just floating and looking down hundreds of metres to the valley floor. Felt completely safe and Lois, our tandem guide took some cool photos.

We also did some white water rafting– a bit tame, but good nonetheless, and I did some cycling around the resort town, discovering various parts of it – waterfalls, churches, cycling down the picturesque valley… This place has about 4000 permanent residents and 4000 more beds for tourists - mainly skiers - over the winter season. Man, this place would go off in winter! Also pretty cool were the beautiful continental breakfasts every morning – baguettes, luncheon, salami, cheese, as well as cereals and OJ – beautiful if one got up early enough – eh Cuffy!

Evenings consisted of Austrian burgers and some lovely German beers – ‘Augustiner’ in particular - very nice. We were both hanging out for a week of slowing down, so we really enjoyed reading, watching DVDs, sleeping, playing Carcassonne and journeying around the town. One memorable night consisted of mixing it with the locals at the foosball table in the bar.

The highlight of the trip was on the day before we left. After the white-water rafting, we were pretty cold – what better thing to do than head to the Felsentherme – spa pools and saunas!? The way it worked was that the hottest pools and saunas require you to be completely starkers! So after the initial cooler pools, we stripped off & headed to the naked zone and wonderfully hot pools and saunas to relax and soothe us after a hard week of doing not much! Jumping from a hot pool to a cold 12°C plunge pool was pretty tortuous, but then we could head into the 80°C sauna room, where the locals tend to live. After this, we headed outside and sat on the deckchairs, looking up at the blue skies, snow and mountain vegetation – a lovely view! A very liberating experience – brought back memories of moon-dancing at PEWFoG a few years ago!

We left the next morning, complete with paragliding certificate and a Bad Gastein beer mug and retraced our journey back to Munich and then overnight coach to Brussels, after which it seemed to take forever to get from Brussels to London, so I got stuck into my reading. Eventually we got home, and September had already begun.

And it was my maddest September ever. It all started with work being very busy at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), with catching up from being away. Also, there were a number of initiatives we had on the go. We had our regular 2-day staff conference, this time near Manchester, for our team of 10. I organise these, every three months or so. As well as this, there were a series of Roadshows around the country – 3 each in September, October & November. These profiled the services our pay, finance, facilities, recruitment & IT Business Centres provide to our ‘customers’ – the 43 Areas in England & Wales that the CPS is divided up into. This involved organising venues, catering, powerpoint shows, hotel arrangements and the like - always frantic in the lead-up, but then when the roadshow/conference starts the pressure is off me and I can slow down – and others have to deliver! The pressure and busyness was not helped by several late night pool table battles – an equally important aspect of these events!

After the conference it was back at work on the Friday, before I jumped on Eurostar for a weekend in Paris. The most relaxing part was the trip there and back on Eurostar! - I got some much needed sleep in and was met by my Scottish-friend-esconced-in-Paris, Ingrid, whom I stayed with for the weekend. Pretty handy to have a welcoming friend in Paris! On Saturday, I hired a bike for the weekend and discovered Paris’s original centre – the River Seine islands of Ile de la Cite & Ile Saint Louis. It was warm and sunny, so very pleasant for cycling around & relaxing in the parks looking out onto the lovely River Seine. As it was already late morning, I caught the vibe of the place rather than joining the stupidly large queues for Notre Dame Cathedral and tower – next time.

Later in the afternoon, I headed towards the Arc de Triomphe and climbed 50m high arch. This was really quite a stunning piece of architecture (Paris summed up!), with amazing views down the Champs Elysees and over the rest of the city - the Eiffel Tower not too far away, and also the avenues coming off the massive roundabout, like spokes in a wheel. After heading down and admiring the sculptures on the Arc, I cycled down the Champs Elysees - ala Lance Armstrong – very cobbly, and eventually made it across town to Ingrid’s apartment in Boulevard Voltaire, before heading out for a BBQ in the suburbs, with Ingrid.

Sunday was really cool. The target was Sacre Couer & Place de la Tertre in Montmartre, a hilly suburb in the northern part of Paris - where all the tourists flock to. Sacre Couer was pretty amazing, and we walked up its hill, before having a lovely lunch near Place de la Tertre. This was a must-see place for me, as Mum & Dad bought a stunning, still-drying painting fresh off the easel, when here in the 1970s, which now hangs in their living room. After I had bought some souvenirs of Paris, we toured inside Sacre Couer Cathedral, pretty stunning - turn your mobile off Ingrid!! Then I dashed up to the top of the cathedral tower, took some quick photos of the vista, before cycling through town, across the River Seine to the Left Bank, returning my rental bike, metro-ing to Ingrid’s, grabbing my gear, saying goodbye and heading to Gare du Nord for the Eurostar trip home.

After a mid-week work trip to York for our first BC roadshow, I headed to Oxford in late September for a chilled out day and a half catching up with some Tawa/Vic & TSCF friends - Si & Sarah Perris studying at Oxford), Rob Edgecombe & his Dad (over here for a conference), Miriam Plume (over from Tanzania) & Sarah Gillon (London-based Kiwi). Had a lovely picnic, a tour of Magdalen College, and caught up on goss from various places – nice. Thankfully my mad, never-again September, ended, and I spent the next 3 weekends recovering from it at home –LOVING sleeping in and slowing down.

Then, in mid-October, I got head-hunted into a new role within the CPS. Since March, I have had my CV on a couple of websites which recruiters regularly scan. Have had as few phone calls, but nothing offered has been suitable in terms of my experience or what I would like to do. Of late I had also been thinking what could be the next step for me, work-wise over here. Then I got a call from a consultancy who were looking to fill a position within the CPS. This had been advertised internally within the CPS, but no-one suitable had been found. So the CPS approached some recruitment consultancies to look externally for possible candidates. My CV must have matched their search keywords perfectly, because when they emailed me the job description, it was very similar to what I was currently doing, but also with a bit more analysis, data modelling and reporting responsibility thrown in – just what I wanted. I had the interview and got offered the job!

The job (Programme Support Officer) is more on the legal side of the CPS (previously I was involved more on business processing operations). It is called the Advocacy Strategy Programme and it’s essential aim is to increase the number of CPS-employed lawyers prosecuting cases in the Crown & Magistrates (Kiwis, read High & District) Courts. For many of these cases, external Barristers are hired in, so the ASP is an initiative to train up our lawyers to take on more important and complex cases and to generate savings through doing things increasingly ‘in-house’.

Leaving my old job was a bit sad, despite my ‘itchy feet’. I had been in it 14 months, had a line manager whom I really clicked with & had built up some really good working relationships with colleagues who were great to work with, and I enjoyed the challenge of organising various initiatives. My new job is a short term 3-month contract, but a real opportunity nonetheless, and who knows what it may lead to? I started 3 weeks ago, and so far, there has been a lot of reading of various files, some interesting induction meetings in new my department and lots of stats and data to get my head around. Also I have had to start an acronyms list – for all the legal speak!

The last trip of 'summer' was a cycling trip to Belgium. I went with 3 other - Rebekah Dennison, boyfriend Mark Zwies (now fiancée - congrats guys!) and his sister Julie, to Ieper, in West Belgium, for4 days. The main purpose of the trip was to discover some of the many WWI graveyards in the area - something which proved to be very interesting. It all started one very early Saturday morning with a 6am Eurostar to Brussels where we transferred to Ieper on the train. After a 1.5 hour train ride, bike assembly commenced at the station in Ieper – two of us had brought our bikes over, in bike bags - then we located our campsite and settled into our cabin.

Despite it being very wet and a bit cold on 3 of the 4 days, highlights of the trip included:

• Exploring the many graveyards dotted around Ieper, particularly the large Commonwealth ones and the New Zealand-related ones in/near Messines - NiewZelandstraat - a street named after NZ, the nearby NZ memorial to our soldiers - for our effort to liberate Messines in 1917. But most stunning was the beautifully peaceful & aptly named ‘Mud Corner’ cemetery, full of about 70 graves – mostly NZers and one of them Rebekah’s great grandfather. RIP – Lest we forget;

Discovering quaint and character filled Ieper, despite it being flattened in WWI, then rebuilt since, it still had a wonderful and quaint old-city feel, with a lovely centre;
Going to the ‘Last Post’ ceremony at the Menin Gate on the edge of Ieper. This is a large British war memorial arch to Commonwealth soldiers, with 55,000 names of lost WWI soldiers engraved on it. A remembrance ceremony and playing of the Last Post, has occurred at the Menin Gate every evening since 1929;
Exploring a couple of museums, which taught us all about the history & trench warfare/over the top tactics of WWI trenched warfare;
Sleep-ins, omelette or ham & cheese toastie brunches, lovely baguettes & pastries for lunch, Bavik beer and flavour-some Flanders stew for dinner;
Cycling through the lovely countryside, enjoying the greenery, and NZ-like farm smells!

November kicked off with a celebration of NZ’s Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship (TSCF) 70th anniversary. Their purpose is to ‘reach students for Christ’. I have very fond memories of my TSCF involvement, while at university, so I was happy to help organise this get-together. We are trying to establish a network of UK-based NZ Christians & ex-TSCFers, so the purpose was to celebrate 70 years of TSCF & get something strategic going over here in terms of prayer and financial support for the movement back home.

On Nov 5th I turned 31. To celebrate I had a relaxed Saturday night out on the 4th, at a bar on Villiers St, near Trafalgar Square. It was really cool to hang with friends & realise how much more settled and established over here I now feel, compared with a year ago. On November 5th itself, I went to my first ever rugby test - All Blacks v England, at Twickenham. With Danny Hayes capably marshalling the troops, and Hamish Stockers, Rob and Phil Edgecombe and myself in attendance with a group of about 15, we watched the ABs cruise past England 40-21 in a game which was generally always under control for us - hopefully that will be the case this time next year!

We were high up in the top deck of the stadium, which gave an amazing view. The crowd drowned out the haka with ‘Swing low, sweet chariot…’, and kept singing it throughout the match, although it didn’t really help their team! The pre- & post-match ritual was pretty fine too - essentially a boot party of fine food, wines and beers served up out of the boots of very nice cars, parked in a couple of paddocks adjacent to the stadium – Rolls Royces, Range Rovers, Mercedes, Beamers, Chelsea tractors! Our group had our refreshments out of a Volvo – it was a very jovial and convivial atmosphere, and gave the day a nice sense of occasion.

In mid-November, my sister Nicola left London to go home for 6 weeks. She has had a pretty unsettled year on the job front and also recently, with flats. Nics has been doing work at CPS a day a week, so we have hung out a fair bit, swapped CV ideas and encouraging her to keep applying & hoping for jobs to come through and things to turn around. Not often easy to go through, so I was trying to be the supportive big brother. It was tremendous for Nics to get a job offer in early November, to start in January, which she is very excited about. So she took the opportunity to zip back home for first time in almost 2 years - nice!

Went to a Johnny Clegg concert the week after Nics left. I have been a big fan of his for a while, so great to hear him live. Clegg is a 53-year old black man in white skin! He grew up with lots of exposure to black African culture and sings many songs in indigenous languages. His music style is similar to Simon & Garfunkel’s Graceland album. He had a great band including some beautifully soulful and deep backing vocalists, and a guy who was great on the sax– just like you Muzza! Needed a harmonica player though, I thought. But the concert rocked! He also gave a Social Studies-like intro and explanation, to each of his songs, which I particularly appreciated! Great night out, with Angela and Rob.

Finally, last weekend I headed to Cardiff for the ABs v. Wales test, at Millennium Stadium. Again, with Danny Hayes & co, there were about 15 of us on the train over on Saturday, a pre-match lunch, complete with victory cigar before the match – don’t let it go out Rob! Then about half an hour before the game everyone spills out of the bars, pubs and restaurants, and heads to the ground, in anticipation of the national anthems and NZ haka, the latter of which didn’t happen – controversy! – it’ll be a quiz question in latter years. I was OK about this, and very happy to listen to the beautiful Catherine Jenkins and Hayley Westenra sing each respective national anthem for us.

Once again, the ABs were awesome and pretty hard to match for the Welsh, running out 45-10 winners. Millennium Stadium too, was awesome. Deafeningly loud and passionate, and amazingwhen the Welsh sang – more so than at Twickers. Afterwards, we went back to our post-match venue, for some victory drinks. After almost missing our train at Cardiff station, we headed back on Sunday afternoon, on the train, reading the Sunday papers. By now the Ashes had begun. I bought myself a LW radio for the overnight radio feed – late nights and early mornings. Big anticipation over here for the series. However, the anticipation was quickly shattered by a first test thrashing. England seem to have got their act together for the second test - KP fronting up in particular – even my Aussie mate Drew might have to agree with me there. Come on England!

I can’t wait for Christmas now. Have only had 3 weeks off this year. I am heading away for 9 days to the French Alps – Samoens – where I will be staying in a chalet with Rebecca & Paul Roper-Gee, and 2 other couples I ‘sort of’ know from my time in Christchurch in 2000. Time to chill, ski, sleep-in, celebrate Xmas, read, play board games, chat and relax. Should be great.

My best wishes to you, your friends and families, this Christmas season.

Ciao for now!