Category Archives: Life in the UK

Ye Olde Bucket List…Part One

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a busy few days since my last post and I’ve been having a rather splendid time enjoying some of what the English do best…namely Shakespeare and sporting banter. So you lucky, lucky Gidday-ers get two posts.

I know. Two for the price of one. That’s got to be an offer you can’t possibly refuse.

Macbeth came first.

To provide a little context for this rather tragic inclusion on ye olde bucket list, all of that ‘double double toil and trouble’ stuff has been running around in my head since High School when I studied the play as part of the English curriculum in Year 11 and then revisited it in Year 12 English Literature.

And the fun didn’t stop there. Lo and behold, Macbeth was also the Shakespearean text in my first semester of literature at University. That’s three times in three years. The Merchant of Venice the following term was a breath of fresh air.

Anyway I’ve never actually seen the play. Ever. Not even a movie adaptation.

So on Saturday night I settled into my seat at The Phoenix Cinema (my lovely local) and watched a live transmission from the Manchester International Festival. Kenneth Branagh co-directed (with Rob Ashford) and took the leading role with Alex Kingston (of ER fame) as Macbeth’s lady wife by his side.

The set wasn’t a theatre but a deconsecrated church so the live audience sat either side of the central aisle and watched the action unfold…on the grassy verge in the middle. The rains came down, battles were won and lost, murder most foul committed and vengeance served in the end.

It was absolutely brilliant, Branagh was breath-taking…

…and Macbeth finally got ticked off the bucket list.

But the weekend wasn’t yet over.

Tomorrow I’ll let you know what else got ticked off.

A Marilyn Moment…

Posted on by
Reply

London is officially having a heatwave.

(It does make me chuckle at the thought of a mere 32C sending weatherpeople and policymakers into paroxysms of fear and foreboding, causing them to issue warnings to the old, young and mums-to-be.)

London does not do heat well. Its narrow streets swelter and arterial roads melt, its transport system buckles and its buildings steam, constructed to retain rather than dispel the heat. People visibly droop as the mercury rises and breeze is a rare thing on days such as these.

Which is why I stood my ground this morning.

I got to the station a few minutes earlier than my normal train courtesy of what I like to call a ‘fast bus’ (one where not many people make it stop and/or get on). I heard the speaker crackle heralding news that the next train wasn’t stopping. I had been standing in the shade, positioned where the door usually ends up when my train stops.

Rather than step back as I’m usually wont to do, I stood still, flattened my palms against my light summer skirt and as the train raced past, I let the breeze swirl around me.

I felt my body sigh in sheer relief.

It was all over in under a minute but my Marilyn moment stayed with me all day.


Even now it makes me smile.

ps…and speaking of smiling, my smile will be getting bigger and bigger as my special day approaches. Just 15 sleeps to go peeps…

Questioning The Benefits…

Posted on by
Reply

I watched a television show this week that explored the benefits system here in the UK which pitted public opinion against the benefits culture.

I’ve never been on benefits although I have been in the position of scrimping to pay my bills and feed myself as the result of my job being made redundant at the end of 2008 followed by the a**e falling out of the job market in 2009. So as everything from the weekly grocery shop to the job hunting behaviour was scrutinised, I did have some sympathy. But I was definitely on the side of the tax payer who was stunned to see how cavalier other people were being with ‘my money’.

One of the people receiving benefits was a young guy on the dole who had graduated from University with his degree. He received a visit from a tax-paying nurse who works long hours to earn the money she needs to get by. She asked some pretty tough questions and pointed out to him that his situation in having a supportive family – living rent-free with an aunt and uncle who also co-fund things like his iPhone bill – surely meant that he should be working to contribute, albeit at something that might not reflect his degree qualification.

Granted, this guy only received something in the order of £3,600 per year and was doing some volunteer work at the local Youth Centre but in doing the job-hunting rounds of the retailers in the town centre, there was very little enthusiasm demonstrated around find a job to pay his way, let alone fund his hi-tech paraphernalia or brand-name shoes. He’d worked his way through Uni and he felt he should wait for a career job.

I remember leaving Uni in 1991, a rare (for then) duo of degrees in hand, expecting that my choice to double the workload and fees over my four years of study would yield the kind of career prospects I’d been promised when I had first enrolled. I had worked to pay my way throughout and also had a mountain of debt to pay back at the end.

As I sent off applications, phoned recruitment officers and generally chased as many opportunities as possible, time after time I was met with ‘you’re over qualified and under-experienced’, something I found – and still find – to be a ridiculously circular argument. (How can a graduate with any promise get the essential experience for an ‘entry level’ position in their chosen career?) So after leaving my put-myself-through-Uni job, I worked as receptionist, then moved to a sales admin role with a sales brokerage firm six months later and worked my way into my marketing career from there. Life being what it is, I have found myself back ‘at Reception’ several times, temping to make ends meet after moving to London. But that’s a whole other story.

It’s been demoralising each time and there was many a time I thought to myself, what am I doing and how did I get here after all that hard work? But I always wanted to earn rather than receive the handout. Quite frankly, it also kept me sane: to be learning about a new business and meeting new people rather than dwelling on the situation I was in.

There’s a big part of me that can ‘see’ the logic in waiting and taking what one can get. And I understand the disappointment of feeling that years of hard work to get a qualification is being overlooked or even dismissed. But I am pretty put out that my taxes are paying for his gadgets. I’ve blogged about ‘entitlement’ before so I won’t get on my soapbox (for now anyway) – maybe the fault also lies in a system that is ill-equipped to validate need versus ease.

What do you think? Is there anywhere that has gotten this right?
 

Cut To The Heart…

Posted on by
Reply

I love my street. It is a wonderful street to live in. It’s chock full of old semi-detached houses with amazing architecture, intricate decorative detail and gorgeous leadlight windows which come alive when I walk along the footpath at night.


During the day, it’s a leafy avenue lined with a magnificent array of trees that signal the passing seasons with their colour and bloom. And there’s a particular tree that signals the entrance to Gidday HQ. It’s verdant boughs cast a familiar shape across the sky as I gaze out of the window from my lazy-weekend-morning pillow and I’ve watched it transform from stripped bare to a riot of pink blossoms to its recent coat of rich, deep red.


So I was devastated to arrive home one evening last week to find this.

Finchley Council…not so fabulous!

The Month That Disappeared….

Posted on by
1

It’s the last day of June. The longest day here has passed and we are halfway through the year already. The last time I looked I was blogging ad infinitum about my Paris city break and looking forward to seeing Seattle-A for the first time in about 7 months.

What happened to the last 4 weeks?

Well it’s been a busy month jam packed with travel near and far. As regular readers of this blog will know, I spent a week in the Emerald City with Seattle-A at the beginning of the month. I then returned to Gidday HQ for four days – during which time I squeezed in a hen day (yes a whole day) – before travelling to Sweden for our mid year Sales Conference. Back again for 2 nights before packing yet another bag and heading to Oxford for previously said hen’s nuptials. Add to that some long hours at work last week and I literally dragged myself into this weekend, grateful for a little decompression time (and a well-earned mani-pedi).


At the same time, the busy-ness has been wonderful. It feels a bit like a whole lot of great things crammed themselves into the month as a reminder of all of the amazing people that give richness and colour to my life.

The wedding was a case in point: a French woman marrying her Russian paramour and surrounded by a veritable league of nations as the intimate reception of thirty played host to French, Russian, English, American, German, Turkish, Italian, Kyrgyzs (I had to look up what to call someone from Kyrgyzstan) and Australian (that would’ve been me) well-wishers. And working for the European division of a global company meant that the sales conference was attended by a cross-section of my extremely awesome colleagues from across the continent (and indeed the world by virtue of us having an American boss).

But maybe the biggest cultural exchange was in Seattle. 

Pre-trip it is safe to say that a mild sense of apprehension prevailed as to how my life-long, self-imposed baby-free zone would work when confronted with 9 week old twins. Seattle-A and I had discussed several contingency plans – including fleeing across the nearby border to Vancouver (me that is) – if it all got a bit much. But those two little dudes manage to melt Aunty Kym’s heart in the space of just one week.

This is Rockin’ R. Many a cosy chat was held with Aunty Kym during burping, cuddling and even sleeping…although he was a little perturbed as to why the bumps on my chest, so similar to Mummy’s, didn’t emerge at feeding time in the same way…

And this is DJ O, named for his penchant for playing tunes on the interactive baby bouncer. He’s attached to Mummy in a very possessive and singular fashion so this was a short lull in his squirming wriggly-ness where he wasn’t letting the whole world know how life was sucking in Aunty Kym’s embrace…not so many close encounters but still adorable.

All the while I got to hang out with my gorgeous friend, absorbing as much us-time as I possibly could to sustain me until the next visit. We had a few excursions with the little dudes in tow with varying degrees of success (especially our last day lunch, which DJ O was having none of!) Thanks to Hubby, we also got a glorious Sunday afternoon together for coffee, manicures, pedicures, wine tasting and a rather pleasant lunch lolling about in the sunshine at the J. Bookwalter Tasting Studio before heading home to BBQ a whole Copper River salmon (Seattle-A is that kind of girl!)

There was even a touch of drama when G the wonder-dog gave spirited chase to a coyote who’d wandered by to check things out on my penultimate day.

It was such a wonderful week. There’s is something so soothing about being with the people who know and love you best. And I never thought I would become so attached to my awesome little dudes so I hope it’s not too long before I can manage another trip to see them all. Who knew that Aunty Kym would survive baby bootcamp (albeit sans nappy-changing) so well? And that my cuppa-making skills would be quite so in demand?

In any case, it was an emotional hug in the drop off lane at the airport on the Tuesday evening.

So that was June. Gone in the blink of an eye and yet leaving a montage of special memories impressed firmly upon my heart.

I wonder what July will bring?

Inspired By…Literary Notes

Posted on by
Reply

Today I worked in London and Wednesdays in London mean one thing – Stylist magazine. And as I picked up today’s issue, I noticed that it was dedicated to all things literary. Double yay!

So once ensconced on the tube, I delved in, eagerly gorging on snippets and opinions, greedily flicking through recommendations and wondering how many of the ones I hadn’t read would be available to download onto Audrey (and when on earth I would get the time to read them).

I was just over halfway through the magazine when I had ‘a moment’.

Part of this week’s issue has been turned over to four authors invited to write short stories inspired by a summer scent. On the basis of Oscar de la Renta’s Granada, Jeanette Winterson penned Days Like This, a tale of summer romance, of two hearts finding a brief respite from life in the implicit promise of balmy nights and days filled with salt, sand and sea. Quite a lovely thing to read on a sunny June morning.

I was nearing the end of the story when I read this:

…I know that happiness is in the small things that happen everyday and not in the big declarations. Don’t say forever. Say now. Don’t say I do. Say I am.

I stopped, looked up from the page and then looked down again, re-reading those words with a new intensity, determined to imprint them on my brain.

Now
I am
The small things that happen everyday

I closed the magazine, savouring the seconds of stillness that encircled me amid the crush of midweek commuters. A couple of stops later I trundled off the carriage, feeling a little lighter than I had when I boarded half an hour earlier.

Who knew that commuting could be so inspiring?

Women Of Note…

Posted on by
Reply

I read a snippet today that got me wondering.

Ruth Sunderland of the Daily Mail has suggested that the appearance of high profile women on bank notes here in Britain will bolster female interest in the engineering profession. 

Those that have received a guernsey in the proposed Womens’ Engineering Society (WES) campaign include crusader of the skies Amy Johnson and doyen of the digital Ada Lovelace. Sunderland suggests that the appearance of women such as this right at our fingertips could help to inspire young women thinking of a career in the engineering industry, or even the banking sector.

If you head on over to the source of all this inspiration, you’ll find out that WES is an organisation that supports women in technical professions. Formed by the women who took up engineering during WWI while the men were away, the WES will celebrate its 95th anniversary next year and in looking for ways to attract women into non-traditional roles, they will launch National Women in Engineering Day on 23rd June 2014, 100 years to the day after the start of WWI.
 
Further wiki-style investigation has led me to understand that, apart from Elizabeth II, the only other woman appearing on English bank notes has been Florence Nightingale who did the rounds on a tenner between 1975 and 1994.

Australian lolly fares better with the fairer sex featuring on 50% of bills. There’s warbler and sweet inspiration Nellie Melba, two Mary’s – Reibey, a businesswoman and Gilmore, a poet – and a couple of suffragettes (Edith Cowan and Catherine Helen Spence).

And then if you flip an Aussie fiver, you’ll find one of the two women who have held the royal reins longer than any fella in British history. She’s had an upgrade on the new polymer notes having only made her mark previously on paper of just one dollar denomination. The previous five dollar note featured champion of female immigrant welfare, humanitarian Caroline Chisholm.

Anyhow, I digress. It got me thinking who might appear on currency of the future. Would Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian efforts garner her a spot on a greenback? What about Claire Balding, one of Britain’s best sports reporters, beaming up at you from a British bill?  And then there’s Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister – how will she be honoured by her world of back-biting back benchers and odious Opposition?

Who do you think should get their bonce on your banknote?

First Desire…Now The One

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been almost three years since we first met.

Before I knew it our daily dalliance had given way to deep devotion, a devotion that has captured everything from my morning musings through to the most fervent ramblings of my heart. Commuting gems have been shared, plans have been made and connections forged and re-forged across London’s transport network and indeed, the world.

But today something has changed. There has been a shift. A letting go.

As happens so often in life, I was faced with relinquishing one thing in return for another.

So with heavy heart I approached, hoping I could still keep a part of the wonderfulness whilst opening myself up to something more. I pushed open the door, waited for my moment and uttered the words I had avoided saying for so long…

‘I need to upgrade my phone.’

A mere 40 minutes later, the job was done and my Desire had been replaced…

…by the One…

…and I’m in love all over again.

Spring Frolic…

Posted on by
Reply

This afternoon I hosted a small group of friends at Gidday HQ.

Our quartet – or Fab Four if you like – makes an effort to do something together every month. March saw us venture into The Lost Lectures, February was lunch at The Banana Store and a wander around Borough Market (see my post on London’s Hip Pocket for more on this outing) and last year we discovered  some rather delectable delights at Ceviche in London’s Soho and beneath Tower Bridge at The Perkin Reveller.

It has been such a busy time for our little quartet that there was a danger of April slipping away without a Fab Four frolic. So I took matters into my own hands and invited my trio of lovely ladies for a Gidday soiree on the back patio.

To my delight (and great relief) the weather stayed dry and while it was a trifle chilly, I had blankets and wraps on hand. There was even much excitement when the sun made a cursory appearance between main course and dessert and for a few brief minutes, we basked in Spring-like warmth.

I learnt years ago that the key to being able to enjoy hosting these events is being prepared – I have no desire to be stuck in the kitchen while my guests are having all of the fun.  So we started proceedings with a vegetable platter, an avocado dip and some Mediterranean bread and seeded crackers for dipping – and I got to enjoy the wine and conversation, both of which flowed effortlessly.

To follow was a cheese and vegetable pastry-less quiche which went down a storm and after part-baking this morning, only need another 20mins in the oven. It came with a big bowl of green salad (easy to whip up) and some fresh vine tomatoes marinated in a light dressing (made last night) all of which meant I spent more time at the table…and drank more wine.

But the thing I am most proud of is my dessert – individual ginger and white chocolate cheesecakes…

..built to frame the cute champagne candles I had found in Tesco a couple of weeks ago and complete with golden ‘bubbles’. And made last night meaning even more time at the table for me this afternoon.

Before long, over three hours had passed, the coffees had been finished and it was time for my visitors to go.

It was such a pleasant Sunday afternoon and it reminded me how much I love to cook for other people, an opportunity that needs to be ‘manufactured’ in my time of singledom versus being ever-present – as it was – when I was part of a couple. And in any case, solo cooking exploits can be quite dangerous. Prior experience tells me that one cannot should not consume cheesecake (or any baked goods for that matter) on one’s own and still expect to fit into one’s jeans. Sharing is definitely the key.

So here’s to more Spring Sundays with fabulous friends, scrumptious sustenance and convivial conversation.

Double Digits And Drowsy Daffs…

Posted on by
4

If you’ve been speaking recently to anyone living in the UK, you will know that we have felt the grip of winter’s chilly fingers well beyond the ‘start’ of Spring. Night-time temperatures have dipped below 0C for far longer than usual and the days have nipped at the noses, fingers and toes of anyone daring venture into the outdoors.

But last weekend, things shifted. The sun appeared, the mercury climbed into the mid-teens and I found myself moving to the patio at Gidday HQ to breakfast, read the paper, paint my paws toenails and anything else I could think to do that meant I could stay in the warm mellow sunshine.

The days are getting longer too (I mean versus the night, not that we are getting more than our requisite 24 hours). In the last week I have walked from the office to the train station three times, a wonderful 15-20 minute respite in the fresh air dividing the frantic busy-ness of the office and the cocooning commute of the train. 

The best bit is that Spring colour is starting emerge. There have been signs of spring here and there but it would seem that the week of double digit temperatures has opened the ‘blooming’ floodgates (geddit? blooming…did you like what I did there?) and the tree out the front of Gidday HQ has burst forth in a riot of delicate pink blossoms.

And the daffodils are out. Their yellow heads have lifted from their winter sleep to bob drowsily in the breeze, lining paths, meadows, gardens and even the main entrance to the office. The Metro has been filled with pictures of Wordsworth’s host stretching across the Lake District in a golden sheet of colour – a sign of lighter, brighter days to come.

I have always loved daffs. They are such joyful, hopeful flowers and nothing makes me happier than a big vase of bobbing sunshine-y blooms. In Australia, they are in season around August and Mum always bought me a humungus bunch for my birthday so for me, there has always been a really strong association with family and happy times.

When I first arrived in the UK I was having a really difficult time, and I remember sitting on the bus, gazing out the window and quietly despairing about how I was going to keep getting up each day and build this ‘new life’ I’d crossed the world for. The bus rumbled over Kew Bridge and suddenly the view was filled with hundreds of dancing yellow daffodils splashed across the Green. My heart lifted, my resolve stiffened and in that moment I felt that somehow, things would all turn out.

So for all of you lovely Gidday-ers who enjoy my expat ramblings here at Gidday from the UK, you have a host of drowsy Spring daffs to thank. 

 

And every year, when those glorious golden trumpets appear again and toss their spritely heads, I remember that moment on the bus nine years ago when an unexpected burst of Spring gave me hope and I found the courage to keep building my dream.