Kensington Palace

On Sunday morning I headed to Kensington Palace (with my camera memory stick) to have a look around the palace. The palace's state apartments are open to the public to look around at the exhibitions. The exhibitions on at the moment are the "The Last Debutantes" a world totally different from ours and various dresses worn by the the debutantes and Princess Diana.

Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British Royal Family since the 17th century. Today it is the official residence of The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; the Duke and Duchess of Kent; and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Kensington Palace is also used on an unofficial basis by Prince Harry, as well as his cousin Zara Phillips.

In 1981 apartments 8 and 9 were combined to create the London residence of the newly-married Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana, and it remained the official residence of Diana, Princess of Wales after her divorce until her death. Her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, went to local nursery and pre-preparatory schools in Notting Hill.

Until 1997, it was the official residence of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

It was amazing to see how huge the area was that was covered in flowers after Princess Diana died. Unfortunately, no royals were spotted.

And in the afternoon headed to Battersea Park to hang out with the others and lap up some of the afternoon sun.

This week

This week I started my new job at a patent attorney firm near Blackfriars tube station. I have this job for the next couple of weeks maybe more (fingers crossed). This job is paying a higher hourly rate than my other jobs and has flexitime which means as long as I am at work before 10am and don't go home before 4.30 and work 7 hours I can choose my hours. Its great to have some sort of "regular income" especially with expensive holidays coming up.

Hayley had been scanning lastminute.com and came across some 10 pound tickets (can anyone point me in the right direction on how to change my keyboard to have a pound symbol (I have Windows Vista?)) to see Into the Hoods at the West End. So on Wednesday we headed down to Novello Theatre. Into the Hoods is the first ever hip hop show to make it to the West End and I can see why it was fantastic. I am not generally a fan of hip hop fan but this was quality dancing, it even had some contemporary and jive and ...Fairy Gee a, I would say about 5 year old girl, who came on stage with some funky moves in a gold jump suit!

On Saturday I packed my bag, made sure I had a fresh battery for my camera and made the journey into town to visit Kensington Palace. I was walking through Hyde Park and was looking on the lawn that had some pigeons on it and in between the pigeons was a squirrel. I pulled out my camera in excitement to take some shots. Suddenly my memory was full. Damm, what an idiot, I had left my memory stick in my laptop at home (over an hours journey one way) what an idiot and incredibly frustrating because the only person you can blame is yourself. So I skulked away from the entrance and headed down to Kensington High Street to see if I could pick up a cheap memory stick for my camera. As my camera is Olympus it takes an XD memory stick and of course these are really expensive. Grrrrrrrr. So instead I went to the movies and saw the Sex and the City movie and its was really good and had some laugh out loud moments. Its made me want to start watching the series!

Saturday's Shinigans

GIRLS PICTURE

On Saturday Hayley had scored four free tickets to the Redbull Flugtag in Hyde Park, so myself, Hayley and Louisa headed down on Saturday morning. After finding a semi-good posie we settled down and waited for the dancing and contraptions to fly. As we had an extremely annoying tree in the way (damm that park for having so many trees) we only had a limited view of the dancing but fortunately were in a good spot to see the contraptions fly (fall) off the edge. It was good for free and fortunately London turned on a fantastic day and made us all at little less pasty.

How we spent most of the night, talking and laughing!

On Saturday night Hayley had organised a "girls night" of glamour, gossiping, drinking and boogging. Debra was also in town and us girls hadn't caught up all together in ages. After a few too many Flirtini's and Pam had been watching Sex in the City marathons so no subject was untouched the night was spent gossiping, reminiscing and catching up and didn't end up going out as before we knew it, it was 4am!! So many pictures were taken so don't forget to check out the photo gallery for HEAPS more pictures.

Toni

xoxo

Delia was in town ... and so were the stars

Delia was in town for a few days and since I wasn't working on Monday we decided to catch up. I haven't seen Delia in AGES so was really great to see her again. We decided to do something touristy and as we could get 2 for 1 Madame Tussauds was it. For all those that don't know, Madame Tussauds is the wax museum in London. These wax figures take over 800 hours of sculpting, measuring, moulding and painting to get them as life like as possible. Some of them looked quite real and others no so much. I can't believe how short/skinny some of them really are. These pictures are probably the closest I will ever get to movie stars, sports stars, royalty, they even had world leaders Tony Blair, John Howard even Hilter and Saddam Hussein, unfortunately god darn it not Helen Clark though!

I took loads more pictures and you can see them in my photo gallery and also don't forget to leave a message in my guestbook.

Nothing too exciting

I had a relatively low key weekend this weekend.

On Saturday I was heading into town when I got a call from a job I had been doing for the last two weeks but finished on Friday to ask if I could come in for an hour or so, I jumped at the chance as I didn't have a job lined up for next week. After a couple of hours in the office I headed down for a walk alongside the river Thames past Shakespeare's Globe, which I will have to book in to see a play, Tate Modern not really my kind of thing and over the old wobbly Millennium Bridge although it didn't wobble for me. I had the house to myself as my flatmates had gone to Spain so popped in a movie, The Green Mile which I brought for three pounds at Tesco. I know its relatively old but I hadn't seen it before and if you haven't seen it, its really good.

On Sunday they were showing a live video performance of Romeo and Juliet straight from the London Opera House and since it was free and not to far from home, Hayley, Nicki and myself headed down to Canary Wharf. It was a good show and the ballerina's were amazingly flexible, the only let down was I think they watered the grass before the show and it was wet and damp but otherwise not to bad for free.

Toni

Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling 2008

Video of Cheese Rolling

Cheese Rolling

On Sunday we headed out to Glochester for the annual Cheese Rolling Festival.

With a disputed history dating back to at least the 1800s, the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake involves hordes of fearless competitors chasing a weighty 8lb Double Gloucester cheese down a death-defyingly-steep hill. The slope on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester, the eponymous setting for the world-famous event, is in fact so steep that few contenders manage to even stay on their feet, instead tumbling head over heels down the hill in a desperate effort to catch the coveted prize.

While in reality the cheese can never actually be caught – with a brief headstart it soon reaches breakneck speeds – the race winner is the first person to cross the line at the bottom of the hill. Some contenders sadly don’t make it all the way down though, and instead lie in wait for the St John Ambulance crew who are on hand to fix-up the daredevils or whisk them away to the local A&E.

The highest injury toll in recent years occurred in 1997 when 33 competitors were treated for everything from splinters to broken bones, and in 2005 races were apparently delayed as ambulances delivered victims to the local hospital before returning to wait for the next batch of casualties. Spectators have also be known to receive their fair share of injuries – one year an off-course cheese took out an innocent bystander – but you can rest assured that such occurrences are rare.

It was a cold, wet, miserable, muddy day but we still made the effort. After getting an average possie on the hill it was exciting when the first race finally started. Now, you can't understand from the photo how steep this hill actually is, the hill is on about a 45 degree angle and as stated above, people run down it after a roll of cheese and many of them don't stay on their feet. The first winner of the day had to actually be taken away by a stretcher!

It was fun to watch (what you could see) and a crazy tradition! Was nice to get back into the warm car though and heat/dry off.

London Sevens

On Sunday Hayley had scored us (Hayley, Nicky, Sheree, Marty and myself) cheap tickets (woo hoo and they were actually really good seats) to go to the sevens at Twickenham Stadium. It was raining in the morning but fortunately it stopped just in time for us to set ourselves up in our seats and start watching (or drinking and talking!!) the games. See this link for more info on the day - London Sevens. A lot of people dressed up and it was fun to see them all. Unfortunately we didn't really have time to dress up and it was cold and wet in the morning to really feel like making an effort but once the sun started shining and the drinks started flowing we had a fantastic day getting into the atmosphere and cheering for the kiwis.

Eating chips and homemade kiwi dip

Below - Hayley, Toni and Sheree

Chris and Craig (Aussies we met), Hayley, Toni and Sheree.

More pictures in the photo gallery and more reading about the event on Hayley's page!! (our pages are going to mirror themselves :) ).

Toni

The Tube

Today I started my new job for two weeks in Oxford Street. I had logged onto TFL to suss out my route to work. Walk, bus, tube, walk – good. It was similar to my last way to work just a few more tube stops and I started at 9am rather than 9.30am. So I thought I could manage it in one hour. So the jumped on the bus and headed to the tube station and went inside to catch my tube. As I have mentioned before generally the tubes are jam packed in the morning and as 2 people go out 10 squidge themselves in. But at 8.30am, 1 person goes out and 20 people try and squeeze in, as tube after tube goes past (I think five in total) I decided that was enough, I had to bite the bullet and be one of “those” people who jam packed myself into one of them. Lucky I had lost a bit of weight lately, cause even breathing in was a

tight squeeze to get the doors closed! Phew I managed it and we are on our way and I can breathe out again. What I didn’t think about in advance is the doors opening. Ohhhhhhhh, a smack on the funny bone is a good reminder to also breathe in again when the doors are being opened at the next stop!! So in the afternoon I decided to take the bus, a bit longer but at least I get a seat, although I was at the back of the bus with some “youths” who were yelling out to some other “youths” that they were going to shank them!!

Gotta love London.

TTFN

Toni

Wellington Arch

On Sunday after staying at Pam's after Hayley's (as I live ages away), I headed to Wellington Arch to have a look around before meeting Hayley, Gina and Niki for a picnic in Hyde Park.

Wellington Arch, also known as Constitution Arch or (originally) the Green Park Arch, is a triumphal arch located to the south of Hyde Park in central London. The arch, and Marble Arch close by, were both planned in 1825 by George IV to commemorate Britain's victories in the Napoleonic Wars. The Wellington Arch was also conceived as an outer gateway to Constitution Hill and therefore a grand entrance into central London from the west.

Also near the arch they have memorials for New Zealand and other various countries.

Sorry of these blogs aren't interesting but they are a good diary for me of all my travels and sightseeings.