A long overdue update

You gals all already know that for the past 5 or 6 weeks I've been on the job hunt, so I won't go in to too much detail about that. It's been quite a tough time and very stressful, but I'm definitely getting better at it, especially at interviews. Hopefully some good will come soon.

Apart from that, LOADS has been happening! Despite the stresses of looking for work, I've been getting up to a lot of fun stuff! And it's been aaaages since I told you about what I've been up to. So let's get cracking! :)

ANZAC Day
On ANZAC Day I went to the dawn service at Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner. It was the best ANZAC Day service I've ever been to, let alone the best dawn service. There were hundreds of Australians and Kiwis there. They had some incredibly moving readings. It was so special to be there. ANZAC Day means so much more to me now that I'm away from home, just like the ANZAC diggers were.

Columbia Road Flower Markets

These are some big flower markets in Shoreditch. Nick and I went and we bought some massive sunflowers and some yellow roses. We also bought a giant glass vase from a nearby second hand stall because we didn't actually have a vase to put them in lolz.

Our flowers!

Bank holiday #1
For the first May bank holiday (which is what they call public holidays here) the weather was super and so we had a BBQ in Highbury Fields with our friends Joe, Brad and Tara. Islington, which is my borough (kinda like a collection of suburbs), is apparently the only borough in London where it's technically legal to have BBqs in the parks - score! On the weekends when it's sunn, Highbury Fields is covered in a blanket of BBQ smoke! I don't know if I've mentioned before, but Highbury Fields is a lovely park that's a block or two from my place. I go for my runs there.

Believe it or not, it's usually even more crowded in the park on sunnier days!

Rugby 7s
Nick and I went to the Rugby 7s tournament at Twickenham Stadium with our friends Jack and Sophie. It was soooo muuuuch fuuuun!! Rugby 7s in a nutshell is just like rugby union but with 7 players on each team and each half goes for 7 minutes. So it's really fast and exciting. One of the games was Australia v England - All the English around us booed us (we were wearing Australia green and gold scarves) and sang Swing Chariot, but we won anyway he he :)

Australia v England

Norway Constitution Day
17th May was Norway Constitution Day. One of our best friends here, Jack, is Norwegian, so he organised a big day of celebrations! We started off with brekky at Jack's place with traditional Norwegian food. Then we went to the celebrations at Southwark Park, which included a big parade with a marching band. Lots of fun to be an honorary Norwegian for the day!

Arsenal victory parade
I live really close to Arsenal football stadium and a few weeks ago they won the FA Cup (don't ask me what exactly that is...) so they had a victory parade and it came right down our street. Ridiculously cool!!

Just to give some bearings, New London cafe is our 'local' cafe - We live roughly 50m up the street.

Looking in the other direction (New London cafe is behind me to the right)

My local pub chockers with Arsenal fans

Book Club
I'm part of a book club (get ma nerrrrd on uh huh) over here that Claire Bowman started, and on the weekend we had our inaugural meeting! It's good to try and get back in to reading more, whilst also reading books that I otherwise would never have picked up. And the other club members are super nice and fun too :)

Nick's work BBQ
Nick started work last week, which is ridiculously exciting! His work had a BBQ on their roof on Thursday evening. Evening BBQs are the best at the moment, because the sun doesn't set till 10pm at the moment and the weather in general has been pretty nice. What's really cool is that Nick works on Park Lane - yes, seriously!!! And to get there, I walk along Picadilly, which for some reason is the street in London that when I walk along it I'm like pinch me I live here how did this happen I'm on Picadilly! Haha :) Anywho, Nick has the most incredible view from his work - it's like, 'Spot the famous London landmarks'.

L to R: The Gherkin, The Cheesegrater, The Shard, London Eye, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament...

Other than all of the above, Nick and I spend the rest of our weekends exploring new areas of London. We also did a trip to Copenhagen for the second May bank holiday weekend, but more on that another time :)

xxx