Return of the Missing Blogster

I'm sitting here at 2:58am, experiencing another bout of insomnia in London. What caused this? Two weeks of working at night at a facility here in London. The main side effect seems to be an inability to reset my bodyclock. I kind of feel like I have jetlag. So what better thing to do than breathe life back into my moribund Blog.

I've been in Europe now for about 3 months, since October 13. We flew to London and spent a quick weekend there, then we were off to France for a bit, visiting the ancient walled city of Carcassonne, then onto Nimes, Alres, Avingnon and Nice. After that we scooted into Italy for a stop in Venice for a week, then Perugia and finally Rome. Was great to have a break this long in Europe travelling. I almost had forgotten how to speak English by the end of Italy, but then I was probably never that good at it any way...

Then it was down to the business end of the trip. Back in London on the 4th November, off to a very dodgy clubbing night at the awful Ministry of Sound to catch Francios Kevorkian and Derrick May. We ended up leaving early at 3am or something it sucked so much. Not the DJs, the venue. If you visit London and go clubbing, do go there. It stinks. Then on the 6th Nov off to work which has pretty much only just finished. I worked on a BBC docudrama series called Nuclear Secrets, screening in the UK on BBC2 now. Then did a Beeb drama, not sure when it gets out there.

In amongst all that Marie and I had to find a place to live which took about three weeks. We were very generously put up by my top mate Pete and his wife Kathryn in Clapham South, which was a new area to explore for us. We eventually settled in West Kensington after finding a short term 1 bed flat. It's worked out quite well as I could walk to work, and not too far for Marie on the tube to the City where she works either. Also a few good discoveries in this area. Found a very nice gastropub round the corner with my favourite everyday ale London Pride on tap, a good Indian and Thai place and an unbelievably cheap cafe run by a North African bloke all with a 5 min walk. So this time in London we've done a Leichhardt and localised ourselves a bit. Which is a nice change from tearing around this vast a dirty metropolis, although London seems to be cleaner the food is much better than it was 6 years ago.

Some info for those financially minded of you, the gap between the cost of living between here and Sydney has shrunk dramatically, mainly as Sydney has shot up in price, and London has stayed static, aside from the tube prices, which have been quite outrageously raised, now £4 one way if you don't use a prepay oyster card. Very expensive. Renting is still incredibly expensive here, but grocery shopping, food and sometimes eating out can be the same or cheaper than Sydney in price. What's going on Sydney!??!

So November and December passed without much to note, other than work. We had good Christmas with friends, but new year was marred by me getting a shocker of a cold for the third time. Unbelievable. I hadn't been that sick in years! So that has kind of killed of seeing bands and going to clubs or just sitting around in pubs. Saying that we have gotten out and discovered many new things so not all bad.

January has arrived and along with it the winter. The weather here has been unseasonably warm. Over 10c most days. That seems to have changed. It's been solid brass monkey weather this week kids. We're talking about two sets of undies and long-johns type stuff here.

February will be a busy month. I'm looking for new work this week, we have a few things planned, possibly a trip away and my birthday next week. As ever life rolls on. I may even open my wallet and spend some cash after the moths have flown out of it of course.

Later readers!

For some photos of things described here, go to:

http://web.mac.com/leon_horrocks/iWeb/marieandleon/Welcome.html