Our day in London

Hello all! Well, we've had a very eventful few days, but I am only going to write about Saturday in this blog post... and I think this will be plenty long enough even so!

On Saturday morning, we awoke bright and early to prepare for our day in the big city. At about 8:15am, we headed off to the Crawley train station, which is near County Mall and about a 25 minute walk. Ben had worked out the logistics of our day the night before – how to get from one place to the next at the right time and so on. He did very well, and the only thing that didn't go as planned was that our train tickets cost over £14 each, instead of the £6 we'd hoped for! Anyway, we set off on the train, changed to the underground once in London, and arrived safely at our first destination: the Camden Passage Markets!

These markets were mainly all antiques, and were quite interesting although we didn't buy anything! The stalls were set up along the footpath in little alleyways and roads and around corners, and offered quite a collection of interesting old items. Some of the things we saw included:

- Lots of old books, cutlery, ornaments, coins and jewellery;

- Cufflinks and gold watches on long chains;

- A shop with cool vases and teapot and mug sets;

- The African Waistcoat Company, where the owner talked to us over his breakfast;

- An actual real polar bear skin rug, which I found quite alarming – entire head, teeth and tongue included;

- More skins of cute little foxes :(

- A stuffed pheasant;

- Deer antlers; and

- A collection of 11 mostly-unclothed Barbie dolls hanging from a chain in a shop window like they were meant to be acrobats performing a complicated stunt.

The Camden Markets didn't seem particularly huge (although there could have been more sections that we didn't discover), and we didn't spend too much time there, as we wanted to be at Buckingham Palace by 11:30am for the changing of the guard! To get there, we wanted to walk through St James' Park, which Ben had been itching to walk through ever since seeing it in June last year. So we took the underground to the station near the park, and walked through the beautiful green park to get to the Palace. The park has lots of open grassy areas with wooden beach chairs that cost £4 to sit in for 2 hours, and lots of people had partly stripped off to soak up the sun and acquire skin cancers (Ben's taught me well!). The main footpaths through the park were lined with beautiful big green trees with knobbly trunks and little square metal plaques screwed into them showing their ID numbers!

When we reached the wall separating the park from the road outside the Palace gates, it was unbelievable how many people were already there, waiting for the changing of the guard! We were 15 minutes early and there was no way we would have been able to get anywhere near the big black and gold fence or gates outside the Palace. Cars were still going along the road, but there were people everywhere except for actually on the road! The big pond and statue feature across from the Palace gates was also covered in people wanting a good view. There were parked police cars, and police on foot and on horseback trying to get the crowds off the road and back behind the railings and barricades. Anyway, I thought I'd never seen so many people in the one place before, but that was until two days later (yesterday) when we went to the Notting Hill Carnival, which I'll tell you about next time!

We settled for a viewing spot on top of the stone wall separating the park from the road outside the Palace. The top of the wall was also full of people, but we were lucky to find a square metre free for us to clamber up onto! I sat on the wall and Ben stood on it, so we could see over the top of the people standing on the ground no worries at all.

The ceremony began with the arrival of the foot guards, who marched in along the road on the far side of the statue feature to us, playing instruments and keeping perfectly in step. These were the men who wear the tall black bear skin hats and red and black uniforms. They were followed by more soldiers marching (without instruments) in black uniforms and smaller hats. This procession was led by a policeman on horseback, and entered the Palace grounds via the gate closest to where we were sitting (there are three gates). From then on we couldn't see or hear them as well. All of the music sounded very grand and brassy, but the only time we recognised the name of anything was when they were inside the fence and started playing an ABBA medley that included Dancing Queen, Fernando, and Mamma Mia!

They remained inside for some time, playing music, and at some stage the actual changing of the guard took place. It's quite amusing that all this pomp and ceremony takes place to change over TWO guards only (or four when the Queen is in residence, Ben says)! We could see the guard on our end through the fence, and the changeover involved two bear skin hatted men marching over to him, then the old guard and one of the others marching away one at a time, swinging their arms, leaving the new guard in the spot where he will stand for the next however many hours! And that was the changing of the guard. :)

After all the other soldiers left, which happened via a couple of installments, we had been there for about an hour, and people started to trickle away. I also got quite sunburned during this, which shows that it was a lovely sunny day. We then walked back through St James' Park in eager search of toilets. These are few and far between in this country, and, quantity-wise, seem to be in inverse proportion to the popularity of an attraction and the subsequent number of people that one can expect will be simultaneously seeking said amenity.

It was then time to head to the Portobello Road Markets, which are in Notting Hill (where we returned two days later (yesterday) for the Carnival). There are apparently 2000 stalls at these markets, and they sell anything and everything! Hats, t-shirts, jackets, toe socks, pashminas, jewellery, bugles, trumpets, horns, signs, antiques, CDs, buttons, paintings, fruit, veggies, buskers (oh, the buskers aren't actually for sale though)...! The only things we bought were crepes for lunch, strawberries in the afternoon, and a red and white zip-up “London England” jumper for me.

When we had come up out of the underground station near the markets, a man was handing out pamphlets warning about pickpockets operating in the area. While we were at the markets, we also saw lots of permanent signs with the same message: “Warning: Pickpockets operate in this area”. So I stayed very aware of my surroundings – and, in particular, my pockets – and we reached the end of the day without being pickpocketed or seeing anyone else pickpocketed. :) Always a good thing!

At 4:30pm, we headed back to the underground for our journey to London Bridge Station, as we had pre-booked tickets for the London Dungeon via the Internet – £10 each instead of the usual £19.95, because of the late time slot (5-7pm). We walked to the Dungeon entrance and joined the “fast track” (i.e. online bookings) line. Pity the other poor people who had a much longer line – the website warns it may take an hour to reach the front! Actors from the Dungeon, dressed in period costume and with faces made up to look blood stained or boil ridden, went through the line painting occasional people's faces with similarly attractive designs. A cauldron issued steam near the entrance, and lanterns above us flickered with fake fire. Soon, it was time for us to enter.

After a little more waiting in line inside, and using toilets in which the cubicle doors were painted with a coffin shape and the words “Let R.I.P.”, we joined our group of 20 or so people and the tour began. Now, just so you know, the London Dungeon is based on London's actual history, so it's all quite historically accurate and meant to teach you something, but it's also meant to scare the living daylights out of you. Keep in mind that the whole place was very dark, with just enough light to see what needed to be seen, and enough darkness to convince you that horrible things were about to jump out at you (a very realistic fear, mind you). At the start of the tour, we entered a room where a creepy wild-haired lady stood silently just inside the door. She then shut the door, moved through the crowd, and quietly loomed at the shoulder of a lady in front of me until the lady turned around, stared right into the face of this startling vision for a split second, uttered a noise of alarm, and moved away very very quickly! Now, try to imagine the mood and atmosphere (and especially the fact that it's very dark) while I tell you some of the main rooms I can remember (warning to Shell: close eyes and hum loudly)!...

- One of the first rooms was a maze of mirrors. It was dark, and everywhere you looked you could either see yourself or someone else in front of you in the maze – but was it them, or their reflection?! Plus, we were at the back of the group so I was constantly checking over my shoulder! The maze was very confusing and totally awesome!! There was also a skeleton behind bars in the wall, and it would suddenly rattle the bars violently just as you walked around the corner.

- In another room, a sadistic actress took a volunteer from our group, sat him in a chair, and pretended to demonstrate instruments of torture on him – for example, a tongue remover and other things I won't say!

- They told us about the Black Plague and we entered a room where a “doctor” had a “victim's body” on the table and proceeded to give a grotesque demonstration of incompetent medicine, such as by pulling out a heart that squirted water over us, and finishing with the “body” suddenly sitting bolt upright with a loud clank (it was a dummy).

- The Jack the Ripper section involved a number of mannequins in very disgusting states – other unfortunate mannequins were also randomly located throughout other sections of the attraction. We watched a video about who might have been Jack, and it finished by puffing a big fireball out of the wall!!!

- We got into a little boat that went along a track, up a slope, turned around while a voice said creepy things to us in the darkness, and then took us to the next part of the tour.

- We also learnt about the Great Fire in the 1600s (between that and the Black Plague, it wasn't a very good time to live in London).

- In another room, we were asked to sit in the barber's chair of Sweeney Todd. He was a Fleet Street barber who would drop his customers suddenly through the trapdoor under the chair, and they would end up in meat pies sold at Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop down the street! (Everything at the Dungeon was supposed to be true, but I just looked online and apparently this particular story is often presented as fact but no evidence can be found that he existed!) We were in pitch darkness in this room, and the chairs included speakers beside our heads that made it sound like Sweeney was clipping his shears around our ears. It finished with the chairs giving a sudden lurch backwards like we were about to drop through the trapdoor! (I was not alarmed by this as I had seen it coming a mile away (i.e. “everyone sit down properly in your chairs”) and had experienced similar chairs in Singapore with Delle, so I recognised the setup!)

- We entered a courtroom where a judge up above us leaned over the balcony and proclaimed drastic sentences for the strange crimes our tour guide told her we had committed. I got called up as the third and last volunteer, answered her question with “Anna from Australia”, and promptly managed to get the entire tour group sentenced to death for associating with an Australian!!!

- The tour ended with one of the highlights, the anticipation of which was probably the thing that scared me most of all! It was the new ride: “Extremis: Drop Ride to Doom”. The sign outside the Dungeon before we entered earlier had apologised for that ride being out of order that day, which had brought Ben disappointment and me relief! But alas, it was not to be, and I didn't even have enough warning to enjoy some proper worrying! Anyway, it was like a mini Giant Drop: we sat in it, pulled the harness down over our heads, and then all the lights were turned out and we ascended slowly. We came to a stop (Ben thinks it was only 4m in the air – I think it was 6 or so) and there were mannequins of three judges lit up in front of us, saying that we were all sentenced to death by hanging. The lights then went out again and we dropped very suddenly into the darkness below. There was a great flash of light partway down, which was our screaming faces being photographed! The photo turned out with Ben's face resembling how mine would look if I were told a spider were nearby (i.e. slightly nervous smile), while mine was contorted into an open-mouthed, scrunch-eyed scream of blinding terror and possibly deafening volume! :) So that was a nice little adrenaline rush to conclude the tour!

We then had a quick look around the souvenir shop and then exited into the normal, comparatively unscary real-life London outside. All in all, it was rather a tacky tourist attraction (quite against some of the ideologies behind my tourism management studies, I'm sure), yet good fun and slightly educational, and while I probably wouldn't go out of my way to take visitors there unless they REALLY wanted to go, it was still worth £10 to see it once.

We managed to find a great little spot to have tea (it was 7 or 7:30pm by then – the tour took 90 minutes). It was a Latin (Colombian) restaurant called Sin Fronteras, and it was just across and down the street from the Dungeon. We had spaghetti bolognese and chicken carbonara for only £4.50 a dish – a very good price here!

Then it was back to London Bridge Station and on the train home. After our 25 minute walk from the Crawley train station to our flat, it was 9pm and my lower back was very sore from the unfamiliar sensation of standing up for most of 13 hours! It was similarly unhappy after our equally long day out yesterday (not to mention some full-on shopping days recently), so I feel I am getting much more exercise than I did in Australia, and will hopefully have some fitness to show for it one day!

By the way, in between all the things that I write about in the blog, the other things that take up a lot of our time are shopping and uni. On Friday, we had a full day of shopping at the County Mall and nearby shops, and over the last couple of weeks I have gradually been expanding my wardrobe (and so has Ben, but not as much since he brought more clothes with him)! Clothes are about the only thing here that I feel are on a par with Australian prices. There are lots more expensive ones too, but it is possible to buy clothes for around what we would be prepared to pay in Australia, so we've been sticking to that mental budget!

As for uni work, my first assignment is due in one week, and Ben's is due the week after. Ben has been working on his since we were living at Helen's! I started work on mine the day we got the Internet here, as the questions only got released online earlier that week. Mine is a group assignment for my subject “Accounting”, and it involves collaborating with four Australians via an online discussion board on the USQ website. Most of it involves analysing Virgin Blue's 2006 financial reports. Anyway, I volunteered to be the one who compiles our group's answers into the one document that we will submit to the lecturer, so between that and everything else, it's keeping me busy!

Well, I'm sure this is quite long enough (>2800 words!) to have lost half the readers partway through :P, so this will be all for now. Hope to hear from you soon! Love Anna.

Happenings and highlights...

Hello all! It's almost 10pm on Friday night, so this won't be a long post (famous last words perhaps?), but I wanted to give you all a quick rundown on the recent happenings and highlights before tomorrow begins! That's because tomorrow we're off to London for a day of sight seeing and various touristy activities, which will probably give me so much to write about that I'll never go back and tell you about the last week if I don't do it now!

Let's go back to Thursday of last week... that was when we went to Trev and Sharon's to help set up the marquee for Saturday's party. Thursday night marked the third time we had eaten tea at their place in the four days since we met them!! Hmmm – I think they're glad to have another young couple around!!! Anyway, from my last post and photos, you can see enough about how the marquee-erecting went that I don't need to go into it here!

After tea that night, Trev wanted to go to “Hove actually” to pick up a picnic table for the party. “Hove actually” is what the town of Hove is often jokingly called, because people who live there, when asked where they live, say “Brighton... well, Hove actually”. Hove is on the coast next to Brighton, about 20 minutes' drive from Trev and Sharon's. Anyway, the four of us jumped in the car – and I think it was at least 9 or 9:30 by then – and set off for Hove. We collected the table and a large trailer from one of Trev's job sites, then had a little meander to find out where the new gospel meeting at Saltdean (also on the coast near Brighton) was starting the following Thursday. We drove along a road which had a stunning view down over the ocean and the city lights, and saw the Brighton Pier (mentioned in a previous entry) at night, all lit up with thousands of little lights – I liked it much better than the first time I saw it (day time, very crowded, etc), and resolved to go back some night when we can leisurely explore it on foot!

We also went through a gorgeous old town called Lewes (pronounced “Lewis”), which has lots of REALLY old shops and quaint narrow streets. Trev and Sharon told us about Guy Fawkes celebrations in Lewes (the biggest Bonfire Night celebrations in Britain, I think)... thousands of people line the streets to watch the local fireworks clubs carry flaming torches and roll flaming barrels through the town, and the night culminates with everyone walking to the top of a hill to watch fireworks displays in the surrounding villages! So we are definitely going back for that in November! Anyway, I was so tired on the way back to Lindfield that I fell asleep in the car!

Saturday was the marquee party. This was a farewell gathering for Max and Elaine, who go to our meeting. They are from NZ and have been living here for 7 years, but are off to the Ukraine for a while! At the party, we met lots more people, ate lots of yummy food, played cricket, and had a sing. They even had a welcome cake for us, as you may have seen in the last entry! So that was a really lovely afternoon.

On Sunday, we had Trev and Sharon over for lunch. I made Jynni's “Honey Mustard Chicken” from our wedding recipe book (I got Mum to email me the recipe as she has the books while we're away), but unfortunately it was more like “Mustard Chicken” due to my not anticipating that English mustard (which we had) is a good deal stronger than American mustard (which was in the recipe)!! We had to put a tissue box on the table because it kept burning up our noses/ sinuses and Sharon was almost crying! Anyway, she did eat the rest of Trev's too, but she could have been trying to make me feel better... :P For dessert, we had delicious blackberry pie, which Ben had made from the blackberries we picked with Trev and Sharon the previous Sunday.

On Wednesday (two days ago), Ben and I went to Brighton for his appointment to get a national insurance number. I don't actually know what this number is for exactly, but it seems a bit like a tax file number in that you need it to work here, you only ever get it once, and it's yours forever, even if you leave and don't come back for 30 years. When Ben had booked his appointment by phone, they hadn't been able to get me one on the same day, and booked mine for the 30^th, but when we were actually there we managed to get mine done right after Ben's! So that was rather good. We gave them a lot of proof of everything under the sun, while they filled out the forms, and afterwards I was very happy to learn that our car hadn't got clamped or fined even though I had parked it in what I thought was a “permit holders only” zone – but what was actually a “permit holders OR pay and display” zone that I hadn't paid and displayed for. But that is another story, and one that is too long and makes me look a bit silly, so I won't tell it. :D

Afterwards, we drove down to the beachfront and ate fish and chips (Ben) and chicken and mushroom pie and chips (me) for lunch, just down from the Brighton Pier. We then took a walk out along the Pier, which was absolutely incredible! It was a clear (although slightly chilly) day, and the ocean was a lovely aqua blue colour that we could see through the gaps in the boards beneath our feet, as well as stretching out into the distance on each side of the Pier. The remains of an old pier looked amazing silhouetted against the ocean off to one side. Families were relaxing on the beach down below, a kid was flying a kite, and a surfer lying on his board was lazily paddling around. Sound blissfully tranquil?

WELL! ... ... ...

We then walked into a large building on the Pier, and it was a total sensory overload! This building was a MASSIVE games arcade, with every kind of game imaginable crammed all over the place, and all available floor space covered with kids and adults either playing the games, watching the games, or weaving their way through like we were. There were games where you move the big claw to pick up stuffed toys or tacky gold watches, racing games with driver's seat and steering wheel, games where you could pilot a jet, games with drawers full of coins sliding in and out constantly, games where you had to dance as the screen showed you where to put your feet...!!!! HUNDREDS of games!!!! And I want you to imagine every one of those games occupied by at least one player with their friends and family looking on, every one of those games playing the beeping, pinging, boinging, loudspeakered music and sound effects that such games employ, and every one of those games covered in flashing, flickering, blinking lights and signs!!! It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!

We then emerged out the other side of the building, where there were more vendors selling everything from fairy floss to henna tattoos to glass cubes with your 3D lasered image in them. Back at the start of the pier, there were stalls selling various foods such as crepes and donuts, as well as those show-type stands (but permanent ones) where you could shoot the ducks/ pop the balloons etc to win prizes. By this time our “pay and display” parking was about to finish, so we hurried back to the car – going around the games arcade this time! But what a tacky yet totally fabulous place it is!!! I'm still planning on going back at night time when it's all lit up so amazingly! I also need to go again when I have my camera, as the last two times we were there, I didn't have it with me!

Anyway, it's getting late, so I must wind this up. By the way, three job agencies now have my CV, and two of them have sent it to an employer re an advertised job in the last couple of days. I'm just waiting for some feedback, but so far I must say they've been much more proactive than Australian job agencies! It turns out that they can only put me forward for “temporary” (i.e. not “permanent”) jobs, as they know I'm only here for a year... which eliminates lots of really good jobs and may explain why the applications I submitted from Australia didn't amount to anything!! Anyway, hopefully something great will show up within the next couple of weeks! Ben starts work on 3 September, so he will be going into school next week to find out his timetable and start planning etc.

Well, that's all for now! LONDON TOMORROW!!!! Goodnight!

How to erect a marquee in 6 simple steps

Step 1: Carry marquee bits to assembly area. If only steps 7 and 8 of written instructions can be found, begin assembly process in an optimistic frame of mind. Don't bother waiting for owner of marquee to arrive home from work – he has never set it up himself anyway.

Step 2: Stick metal things into other metal things. When finished, work way around marquee frame, sticking in metal things that popped out when metal things on opposite side were connected. Wonder why one finds oneself doing this repeatedly. Are they all popping out again because there are different lengths of metal bits and no consideration was given to this during the assembly process?

Step 3: Ponder situation in a manly manner. Wives use husbands' manly consideration time to complete many other important tasks.

Step 4: Once all metal bits have been hounded into submission, quickly pull billowing canvas roof over marquee frame, using four people as anchors to prevent spontaneous hang gliding incident. Wonder why canvas roof does not quite reach both ends of marquee at same time. Raise suggestion that canvas may have shrunk. Make it the correct size by sheer stubbornness. Obtain “Madonna” element of roof design by placing screaming wives on amused husbands' shoulders in order to reach height required to place protective plastic knobs on top of metal rod holding up roof peaks. Assemble and secure canvas walls of marquee.

Step 5: Celebrate successful marquee erecting endeavour by eating a delicious dinner under it.

Step 6: Two days later, attend a lovely garden party under the marquee, making it all worthwhile!

The proof is in here...

For those among you who doubted my veracity regarding Anna's drive out of London, please watch the following...



...and I rest my case!

And we're done! (Finally!)

Well, after much anguish and gnashing of teeth, we finally have pretty much all of the important things sorted out over here. Things have lurched from the sublime to the ridiculous and from simple to utterly incomprehensible!

Everything started off well last week. Within three days of arriving in England, we had successfully set up bank accounts with HSBC (usually quite difficult, according to rumour), put a deposit on a reasonable ’98 VW Golf TDi, put a deposit on a nice flat (just barely in our price range – if you DON’T include council tax!) and after some difficulty (it seems the NAB will only let you transfer $2500 per day – not $15000 – thank goodness for BPay and OzForex’s flexibility!) order our money transfer. All seemed to be going swimmingly!

I had hoped that our transfer (supposed to take 3 working days) would be through by Monday (only two days – wishful thinking I know), but alas this was not to be, so another £50 was passed over to Jane at Caprice Guest house, who thankfully was able to fit us in for another night at short notice.

It was also about this time that I started chasing quotes for car insurance for the Golf – I needed to have it organised by Wednesday, which was when we had arranged to pick the car up. This was the first in a coming series of shocks. We went into my new school where Maria, one of the lab assistants, had kindly offered us the use of her phone and internet for organising such things. After a few lengthy and frustrating attempts, I gave up on online quotes, which do not cater well for those with non-UK drivers licenses etc. So I started calling insurance firms.

This was where the rot really set in – one of my first quotes was for ~£1600 (over $3800 for a year!), with an excess of £450. This meant that with one claim, we would pay more than the total value of our car (£1995) in insurance – I was not happy! After more frantic ringing around, I encountered my next frustration with the UK insurance industry: while some (but NOT all) insurers will use an overseas no-claims bonus, you can only use your bonus on ONE car at a time. This means that because my car and bike are still insured back in Oz, I can’t use my no-claims bonus over here! Very strange, but as it turns out, having little impact on the insurance we eventually got. Eventually, on Wednesday morning, I got our car insurance with Virgin Insurance for just under £500 – after removing all of the optional extras – and Virgin don’t use non-UK no-claims bonuses at all. Meanwhile there were far more urgent disasters in progress…

On Tuesday morning, we went into HSBC to check if our transfers had come through yet… still not there! Feeling somewhat concerned, but hoping the money might come through later that day, we headed off to our internet café (actually a laptop servicing shop) to check what the status of the OzForex order was – and to check emails and blogs and uni stuff and so forth. According to our account, our transfer had been “Remitted”, meaning they had received our money and initiated the transfer – so all was good there. Not really knowing what to do except wait, we walked up to the County Mall shopping centre and indulged in some retail therapy. After a bit of shopping and wandering around, I decided to call OzForex UK and see what the story was. This is where the really bad news hit. According to OzForex UK, it would take THREE WORKING DAYS to transfer the money from their UK accounts to ours AFTER the funds had been remitted (we found out later from HSBC that inter-bank transfers in the UK always take three days – as opposed to usually overnight in Oz – but that this can often be sped up to one day for an additional fee!). This meant that we would not get our money until at least Friday!

This was a disaster. Not only did we need the money to pay for our flat and get moved in, instead of continuing our pleasant but expensive stay at the Caprice Guest House, we absolutely needed money TOMORROW to pay for our car. The guy selling the car (with the unusual name of Mantas), was on a work trip Monday and Tuesday, back to sell the car on Wednesday, and off on holidays almost immediately after. At minimum we needed to have £1895 (almost $5000) in cash the next day, for the car. We went through all of our accounts and options and figured that with all the cards we could draw UK money from (anything to do with VISA), given a card limit of about £250 per day, we MIGHT be able to get £1500 by Wednesday (3 cards x £250 x 2 days), depending on whether the “days” were counted in local time or Australian time – but still not enough either way, and definitely no way of being able to move into our flat as well. This would mean either spending another £150 at Caprice, or taking Trev and Sharon up on their offer for three nights instead of just one, which seemed a bit rude. After racking our brains for a while, we came to the conclusion that the only option we had was to go and see HSBC and see if we could get some kind of advance on our incoming funds. So back to HSBC we tramped.

Not really knowing what to ask for at HSBC, we just told the lady at the service counter that we wanted to talk to someone about arranging some kind of cash advance (for about £4000 – to cover car and flat). We then waited for someone to be free for about 15 minutes, before Cind, the lady who originally set up our accounts, took us down to the “Mortgage Area” down the back of the bank. We explained our dilemma to Cind, including the fact that we would have about £6500 coming into our accounts on Friday, but that we really needed some of that right away. This is where we hit our first hurdle. The accounts that we had set up last week were “Basic” accounts, which are free and require less address confirmation than normal accounts (a letter from an employer is all that is needed) to set up. Unfortunately, customers who only have Basic accounts are not eligible for ANY kind of Credit product from HSBC at all. No cash advances, no bridging loans, no credit cards, not even normal debit (EFTPOS) cards – cash cards only.

We enquired about changing from our Basic accounts to the fee charging “Passport” account, which is designed especially for new arrivals – and while this was possible, there was still no access to credit with a Passport account. It seems that to get any kind of credit, one needed to have a normal (“Current”) account. However, to get a current account you need proper proof of address – utility bill, tenancy agreement or similar. This would be somewhat difficult for us, given that we did not yet have a proper address to have proof of, and could not get one until we got access to our money!! There was a copy of our tenancy agreement at the Estate agents, but as we hadn’t yet paid, nothing was signed and sealed. However, Cind mentioned that the only part of a tenancy agreement she needed was a page showing our names, the name of the landlord/agency and the address of the flat. If we could get this to her, she could upgrade us to a Current account. First hurdle in sight, if not yet overcome!

Before getting too excited, we thought we’d better find out what credit options would be available to us if we did manage to get our account upgraded, and whether any of them would be fast enough to get our money right then! Most of the options (bridging loan etc.) would take a few days, but as I also had proof of employment they could offer me a credit card with a high enough limit to cover our initial expenses. This was a start, but we needed access to either cash or a bank draft (like a bank cheque – cost: £15). After a lot more fiddling about, Cind worked out that she would be able to put through a cash advance on the credit card (if we got it), instantly transferring £4000 to our new Current account, from which we could access cash. So, with these possibilities in mind we hurried off to the Swan Property Management to see if we could get the all-important part of the tenancy agreement.

From there things went surprisingly smoothly. Donna at Swan gave us copies of all our paperwork, along with her card in case there were problems, and back to HSBC we dashed (in the pouring rain mind you!). Cind was still available at the bank so we walked straight in to see her. Within 15 minutes, we had new Current accounts, in 30 minutes I had a new Mastercard account, and suddenly we had money – finally! To try to save us walking back to Swan with nearly £2000 in cash, Cind rang Donna to see if we could do an electronic transfer instead. Unfortunately Swan did not bank with HSBC, so it would have been another UK/three-day inter-bank transfer, and we needed the money to clear immediately so we could move into our new home straight away! So £30 and two bank drafts later, we were on our way back to Swan again.

Just a few minutes later all was signed, sealed and paid. We just had to wait until 5:30pm to meet up with our inspection agent before we could move in – more on that later. In the little bit of time we had until then, I decided to investigate options for internet connections at the flat – Virgin had some good deals, so we went to the Virgin store up at County Mall to find our how long it would take to get online. Anna almost fainted when the guy told us that it usually took a week to ten days to get a connection up and running – it seemed we would be spending some more time at the laptop shop yet.

At 5:30pm we went through a gruelling inspection of our nice new flat with Scott, the inspection guy – a great way to see everything that is bad about a new home! After Scott was finished, we went back to our local fisho (see Anna’s previous entry), but this time ate in the car as it was still pouring rain! Then it was off to the local ASDA 24-hour shop to buy the necessities for our first night in the flat – the time was 8:30pm. By the time we left ASDA it was 10:30pm and we were both footsore and exhausted. Just enough energy when we got home to put the milk in the fridge and make up the SPARE bed with our new linen! It seems the bed in the main bedroom here is NOT a double bed as we were told, but actually a queen-size (here they call it a king) – making double bed-sized linen (which is what we’d purchased) difficult to fit. At least we’re now organised for visitors!

Wednesday was pick-up-the-car day. It was also the day our hire car (a fairly awful, though quite economical old Ford Fiesta) was due back. This was the other reason we really needed to pick up the Golf on Wednesday. The Fiesta was originally due back at the hire place at 10:30am. However, there was no way we were getting to London and back by that time. Thankfully the guy at Scarletts Hire let us extend to 2pm, free of charge, on the proviso that we got back as soon as possible. After an hour drive back into Plaistow in East London (somewhere near the West Ham United football ground) and a little bit of paperwork, we had a new car – but now came the hard part. Because insurance only covered me as a driver of the hire car, Anna drove the Golf back to Crawley. This was her first experience driving in another country and started with an utterly unfamiliar car in the middle of London – she did surprisingly well considering (well mostly anyway!). Anna decided that I should lead the way with TomTom, so she really only had one thing to do at a time. So off we went…

Anna managed to get left behind after just over half a block. I found out later that this was because she managed to stall the Golf at our first intersection – about 80m from where we started! To try and get her caught up, I pulled into a side street and manoeuvred myself around the two inch wide gap, ready to pull out when Anna came along. A short while later she came zooming past, with no idea where to go, forcing me to duck out chasing after her. We eventually managed to get ourselves sorted out and continued on our way. The way was not made easier by the fact that my lovely wife insisted on leaving at least enough room for 3 cars between us – she later informed that this was because it would have been very embarrassing to run into the back of me, damaging both our cars within the first hour! This being England however, that three car gap was almost instantly filled with three or four cars, a situation which does not make for easy leading. Not only that, but I noticed that despite her difficulty in staying close while driving in hectic London traffic, Anna was, however, managing to take photos as she drove.
To make matters worse, I was eventually told that she was actually recording and narrating video as well! When we actually did reach the motorway, we were mostly 10 -20 mph slower than the traffic around us, because of my wife’s stubborn refusal to do the speed limit. Also, every time a lane change was required (fairly frequently), Anna forgot she was driving a European car and turned on her wipers. This meant she almost never used her indicators – she’s becoming more English by the day! Anyway, we did eventually make it back to Crawley (with another Golf stalling somewhere along the line), in time to drop off the Fiesta at 1:40pm – we were even early! At this point however, Anna was a stressed-out wreck so I took over the driving.

Having discovered the previous night that we already had a cable connection in the flat, we went back to Virgin to see how this would impact on install/connection times. Good news at last! Because the cable was already in, we could elect to “self-install” (say goodbye to £25 installation fee) and we would be up and running when our modem arrived – on Friday. Well it is now Friday, our modem turned up this morning, we have splurged on a new wireless router (which works all through the flat) and I am posting this from our dining room table! We’re done, we’re in, and we’re set – finally!

Photos from our weekend...

I'm currently at the Internet cafe and have a chance to upload a few photos to satisfy everyone's curiosity a little!

Photos 1 to 5: Brighton.
Photo 6: Terry and Olwen's dogs.
Photo 7: A slug.
Photo 8: The street and hall where the gospel meeting was held (the building with the clock).
Photo 9: Dinner with Trev and Sharon.
Photos 10 to 16: Our post-dinner walk, as described in the post “A wonderful weekend”.

Our money transfer hadn't come through yesterday after all, so we stayed back at the guest house last night. Since we couldn't move into our flat, we didn't do much yesterday other than spend a few hours up at the school, using their Internet and phone to get car insurance quotes (which ranged from expensive to ridiculously expensive). Maria and Frank were there too, so we were regaled by Frank's stories and ate the blackberries we had picked on Sunday.

It's 11:45am on Tuesday now. We've just been to the bank and checked our account, and the money STILL hasn't gone through!! So we still can't pay the real estate agency and move in! But Sharon did call us last night to see how our move went, and when she found out it hadn't happened, said we should have stayed with them! It was too late by then, but perhaps we'll have to take them up on their kind offer yet!! We pick up our new car tomorrow.

Our half hour's nearly up – bye for now! And thanks again for all the lovely comments – love getting comments!! :D

A wonderful weekend

It's very late on Sunday night – 1:40am on Monday morning, really – but I'm so happy that I must at least start recording this wonderful day before I go to sleep. I hardly know where to start, because yesterday I was so excited at the prospect of regaling you with our Brighton (mis)adventures, but tonight I am desperate to convey the specialness of today! However, chronological order wins out, so I'll pick up from when we left the public library yesterday. By the way, I'm writing this in our new room at the guest house – we were moved downstairs on Saturday morning because our original room was already booked. This is our last night here. Tomorrow night we should be in our new home, fingers crossed (there is the slight possibility that the OzForex transfers won't have gone through yet, in which case we won't be able to pay the advance rent and may have to sleep in the car).

On Saturday afternoon, we left the library, and, after a short interlude in a “Save the Children” op shop where we bought three books (The Husband, The Last Juror, and Enigma), we set off for Brighton. Beside the highway, the countryside was, as usual, lush, green, hilly, and smattered with quaint buildings. After probably half an hour, we arrived in Brighton. We drove past a large park filled with couples and groups soaking up the sunlight, and lawn bowls players dressed in white. There were streets full of near-identical houses, tall and thin and standing close together, interesting shops such as “Tattooing at Gunpoint”, and a few particularly impressive structures such as those built by royalty a long time ago. We then reached the esplanade, and for ease of my writing and your reading of this, I'll use dot points to share some of the sights with you:

- The ocean (no surf) and large pebbles where sand should rightfully be
- THOUSANDS of people – lying on the beach, walking on the “rock dunes”, waiting to cross the street, strolling along the footpath, riding bikes, waving to my camera (okay, not thousands; only two were doing that last one)
- Lots of tanned skin on show, and bright clothing
- Cars parked in every available parking space, and lots of unavailable/ nonexistent ones too
- A man standing at the boot of his car, feeding his two dogs from silver dishes
- A elderly man and woman sitting on their folding chairs on the footpath, right in front of their car's bonnet, watching the sea
- A guy travelling in a moving vehicle, which at least 80% of his body was outside of
- A small tent pitched on the dunes
- A little tourist train carrying beach goers along a track between the street and the rocky sand
- Hundreds of little change huts lining the beach for a km or so
- A large pond just for sailboarders

We drove up and back along the main section of the beachfront, and then continued further and found a much quieter road in an industrial area, where we saw some shipping container yards, a waste facility, and piers entirely covered in bright green moss. On our way back along this road, we were driving past a section with a high stone wall, so we decided to stop and have a look at the beach, and pulled up beside a gap in the wall that housed a grate with rubbish shoved into it. We jumped up onto a ledge and peered over it at the beach, where there were more people lying around under umbrellas and such. I was about to take some photos of this view, looking at my camera rather than the “real life” scene, when suddenly Ben said “is that guy nude?”!!! The man in question was batting a ball around with a fully-clothed woman, and he was indeed nude. In fact – we suddenly realised – so were MOST people in sight!!! We put the camera away in a hurry and departed the unofficial nudist beach in an even bigger hurry, laughing rather hysterically. Thank goodness everyone was a fair distance away and thank goodness for my poor eyesight!!!!! :D

That night we had tea at a Frankie and Benny's restaurant in Crawley – pizza, spicy onion rings, and a fruit smoothie.

This morning we set off for the meeting, which was 13 miles away in a town called Horsham. We were the first to arrive, which was fortunate, as by some miscommunication we hadn't been expected! This was all quickly sorted, and a special hour followed. More details perhaps in future emails for those interested! It did turn out that others there had heard about our impending arrival. :)

Afterwards, we were invited out for lunch by a couple called Terry and Olwen. Bertha (91 years old) and Esther (from Mexico, working as an au pair to learn English) were there also. We had a lovely meal of roast chicken, veggies from Terry and Olwen's patch in Bertha's garden, rice pudding, mashed blackberries and apple, and ice cream! Terry and Olwen have lots of fish, including some in a pond out back that have been there for the 25 years they have lived in that house. They also have two incredibly adorable dogs – HUGE Bernese mountain dogs with LOTS of shaggy dark hair, brown eyebrows that raise or lower in opposite directions to the other when they look from side to side, and a tendency to pad gently into the kitchen and lie down flat with their chins on the tiles, watching the lunch preparations. By the way, I mean “huge” as in “one weighs 10 kg less than me, and the other weighs 8 kg more”.

Afterwards, we came back to the guest house and relaxed until it was time to leave for the gospel meeting, which was at 4:30pm. This was held in a hall across from a pond in an impossibly cute town called Lindfield, about half an hour away. You won't believe who was there – an English worker, Judy, and our very own Jeanette L!!!! What a small world it is – and, as the evening progressed, it got even smaller.

We had already received an SMS at lunch time, inviting us out for tea. This invitation came from Trev and Sharon, who live in Lindfield and have been married for only 4 months, and whom we hadn't yet met at that stage. Trev is from England (and is Olwen's nephew), but Sharon is from Melbourne and has been living in the UK for a few years. She's a primary school teacher, and Trev works in Terry and Olwen's construction business. After the gospel meeting, we followed them back to their place, which was a gorgeous two-storey house next to a hayshed and a row of small business premises, at the end of a lane lined with blackberry bushes and surrounded by green fields dotted with lambs and cows.

After, during and before a lot of highly enjoyable talking and laughing, we ate a yummy tea at a table outside. We then set off for a “dander”. I feel that if it were possible to die from an overload of cuteness, I would not be around to write this blog entry. The entire area was just utterly, unutterably cute, gorgeous, quaint, serene, picturesque and beautiful!! The little lambs ran over at Trev's call (although the first lot were a bit ill, and coughed all over him). There was an enormous castle-like home perched on a nearby hill. The trees and vines formed a canopy above the lane in places, making a large shady green tunnel. A rabbit darted across the lane in front of us. And we filled a bag (and ourselves) with blackberries as we walked!

We then reached the township, where we saw a hunting lodge that had belonged to Henry VII, and wandered through a graveyard beside an old stone church, where the oldest tombstone we found was from the 1760s. This walk included three “firsts” for me: first time picking blackberries, first time climbing over a stile (yes, really!!!), and first time being stung on my second littlest toe by stinging nettles. :) We also saw a couple of signs that warned walkers to stick to the path through the fields, so as to avoid potentially spreading foot and mouth disease.

Back at Trev and Sharon's, we ate some chocolate, looked at their wedding and honeymoon photos, and then showed them our wedding photos on Ringo. It turns out Sharon knows a number of people we know, and some close relatives of people we know, including Ness C, Aussie and Krista, Ritsons, and Sharon and Noel! We talked about lots of things, including funny proposal stories, and about the time I would have thought it was 9:30 or so, we noticed it was 11:30pm!! So off we drove, down the little lane, then back again to collect our forgotten bag of blackberries. We arrived home after midnight, and now here I am! I don't dare tell you the time now, but it starts with “3”. Oh well, it's midday in Australia and only a week ago I was still there, so that must count for something. :)

Anyway, we have made some wonderful friends in Trev and Sharon, and are looking forward to lots more fun times together. It's been a very special day! Goodnight.

PS. I've taken hundreds of photos and can't wait to share a few of them with you, but I'll go back and load them in once we get Internet at home!

What's been happening...

Hello again! It's 7am on Saturday morning (4pm on Saturday afternoon in Australia) and I'm sitting on the floor of our guest house room again. Ben is still asleep. This is becoming a habit here – the last few days, I've been waking up early and either writing a blog entry or doing some study before the day starts properly! We've been so busy that I wouldn't have time to do those things otherwise! Breakfast is at 8:45am today so I've got a little while.

I think the time zone is still set for Brisbane on the blog, so the last two entries probably say they were posted at some horrible hour of the morning – I'll check it when I post this and set it to our time! To answer Dreana's question, we are 9 hours behind you. I think they have daylight saving here currently, so it should change to 10 hours behind you at some stage. By the way, £1 is about $2.40.

While I'm answering questions, you also asked about the weather, Dreana... well, it's actually been wonderful! I think the only time it's rained was on Tuesday night when we arrived. Since then, the sun has been shining, the sky is blue, and the Byrds are singing! During the day I mostly haven't needed a jumper, and the last couple of nights it's been too hot to wear my flannelette PJs!

Here's what we've been up to over the last couple of days (part of which has already been mentioned in my brief update post)...

On Thursday, we set off to HSBC and started the bank account process. We didn't get to see Jane's daughter, but a girl called Cind got our application underway, pending confirmation from TimePlan about our current UK address.

We then looked at a couple more flats, including Tom's and one that is above a dry cleaner's in a little shopping complex! Our two favourites ended up being the first one we looked through (on Wednesday) and the dry cleaner's. We had a hard time choosing between the two, but eventually decided to go with the first one due to its having more space, being in a housing rather than shopping complex, not being right above the owner's place of work, and being closer to Ben's school (1.3 miles). By the time we made that decision, it was 5pm and we were on our road trip between West and East London to look at the second of the two cars for sale. So we arranged to go in the next morning and pay the £250 deposit to make sure no one else gets it. I'll give you the proper address of our flat once I get the postcode!

We had tea – Southern Fried Chicken and chips while driving home – after committing to buy the second car. I also bought a handbag at some stage on Thursday – it's hard to remember the order of everything! But we have been ducking into various shops in between everything else.

On Friday (yesterday), we had our usual huge breakfast (still not eating lunches!) and met another guest, Jean Francois, who is a French Canadian who has just ridden 2700 miles around England in 45 days and is about to walk to (around?) London. Rather a fit fellow!! Btw, Ben's already managed to be recruited to investigate and provide advice on Jane's computer problems. :)

We then went and paid the deposit to the real estate agent and filled out some paperwork, from which they did a reference check to confirm Ben's employment. We also ducked into HSBC to check on our bank accounts, and although she hadn't done it by then, our visible reminder worked and Cind rang later in the day to say it was all organised! We then went on the Internet and I posted yesterday's brief entry while Ben sorted out the transfer of our Aussie dollars into GB pounds via an online company called OzForex. Need this to pay for our advance rent and car next week! $$$$$!

Yesterday we also did quite a bit of shopping. We looked through some markets on High St, and both purchased a pair of £4 ($10) sunnies. Ben's had broken at Brisbane Airport just before we left, and I accidentally left mine in the public toilet at the shopping complex where the dry cleaner's flat was!!! We also explored the County Mall, and (Tim: go straight to next paragraph) Ben bought a pair of jeans, and I bought a nice black knee-length work skirt with thin pinstripe, a pair of black work shoes in a Delle style with buckle feature, a funky blue/ black/ white dress, two cute t-shirts (black and blue), and an adorable pink hat!

By the end of the day, the real estate agent had rang and confirmed that the reference check was fine and we can collect the keys and move into our flat on Monday morning (we also did the visual reminder “look-how-keen-we-are” thing with them)! We arrived back at the guest house at the earliest time of any day yet (4:30pm), and later went for a drive and had fish and chips for tea, which we ate while sitting on a little grassy patch across from the shops. Ben's SIM card from TimePlan had also arrived in the mail.

Today we plan to do some study (maybe in a public library) and possibly take a drive down to Brighton to check it out. Ben spoke to Matt last night and also tried calling the worker's number he gave us, but we haven't managed to reach her yet – hopefully we'll do that today too! That's about all the news for now – not as many exciting/ amusing adventures as my last long post, I know, so we'll try to have some more for you over the next couple of days! Bye for now!

PS. It's now 1:40pm on Saturday and we are currently at the public library. We got ahold of Judy earlier and got some details for tomorrow morning and afternoon; she's calling back with more info tonight. It'll be great to meet up with people!! We'll probably go down to Brighton this evening – our 4-hour parking ticket finishes at 3:30pm so we'll head off then.

I've just been studying for nearly 2 hours – only got through 10 textbook pages due to the time and concentration required to understand equations such as IΔt – EΔt = PΔt = At –Lt – (OEt-1 + KΔt – DΔt)!! Ben only started studying a little while ago, after he finished reading some Dare Devil and Iron Man comics!!! :Z You have to pay for Internet access (and lots of other things) here, and I'm not sure if any computers are free or whether I'll even be allowed to use one without a library membership! But I'll go and investigate, and hopefully post this shortly...