halloween...

I went to my very first halloween party on saturday night, and as a household we dressed up as the Addams family! We all looked suitably hideous - I was Wednesday, Anna went as Morticia, Mike as Uncle Fester, and Scott (our other housemate) as Gomez. I can't believe I'm putting this picture on the blog, because it's so terrible, but that's halloween I guess... Anna couldn't stop laughing at my plaits.

What I didn't realise, was that halloween isn't always about scary things, it's also just about dressing up. The friends who hosted it are Canadian - she went as Queen Victoria, and he was a wizard. It was a really fun night - Mitch had downloaded a halloween song mix onto his iPod (including the Addams Family theme - "they're creepy and they're kooky..."), and Ann had made all sorts of amazing food, and cupcakes with little icing spiders on them.

Mike carved some awesome pumpkins, I'll attach a picture of my favourite (yes Mike, you've made it into the blog twice now!).

The streets are so narrow here that if you meet a car coming the other way, someone has to back up - you should have seen the looks on people's faces with us in their headlights! We laughed so much as they backed up!!

I had worked on saturday (a 6 day week!), so on sunday I needed to do something relaxing. I went to Harrods for a wander! I didn't get far - I spent 2 hours just walking around the food hall, their gift area (everything under the sun with Harrods written on it), and their christmas department. I saw part of the Egyptian Hall, and the Dodi and Diana shrine. I could have spent millions, luckily I only spent 20 quid...

ceremony of the keys...

An hour after getting home from Blackpool we went back into the city to the Tower of London - after dark - after closing! We went to see the Ceremony of the Keys, which is a nightly tradition of locking up the Tower, and basically therefore the Crown Jewels.

We had a Beefeater (Yeomen Warder!) talk us through why they still do it (tradition and the Jewels). Basically a beefeater locks two sets of gates, and is then escorted through the grounds by guards - who also carries his lantern. He is halted by another guard who asks them to state their business, they says they have the keys - who's keys - Queen Elizabeths keys, and they are allowed to pass.

It was all rather theatrical, with lots of stomping boots on the cobblestones, but mind blowing to watch something that has been done every night without fail (even through the Blitz) since the 14th century....

The pics are the White Tower inside the castle (we weren't allowed to take pics of the ceremony), and the outside of the castle.

illuminating Blackpool...

7 of us caught a train to the seaside town of Blackpool on friday night. We chose Blackpool for many reasons, but the main reason (apart from my birthday) was to see the famous Illuminations - where the 4 mile Promenade is lit up at night with millions of lights. So Lorn, when your parents used to say the house was lit up like the Illuminations - you must have had every available light on! We arrived just before midnight and the sight was amazing. I was like a kid oohing and aahing.

If you ever go to Blackpool, stay at the Bracondale B&B. I can't recommend it enough... On saturday after a delicious full English breakfast, we went down to Pleasure Beach which is like a huge amusement park. They had 4 massive roller coasters - none of which I was game enough to go on - but apparently the view from The Big One was awesome.

We walked a mile or two in the arvo, marvelling at the amount of gambling places. I got some pics of the illumination lights, they were just as pretty during the day, as at night. Dinner was another fancy affair - at a restaurant we found out later was one of the first to appear on Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmare's show a few years ago.

On sunday we took a tram (double decker!) down to the shops, where we split up - and my 16 chins and I went to a Dr Who museum!! It had original props, sets, costumes and creatures from the 60's to the current series - even a machine you could talk into to sound like a Darlek! Exterminate! Mike almost bought me a life sized cardboard cut out of David Tennant, cos he wanted to see me take it home on the tube..!! (I would have done it!!!)

a year older...

or, "A Day in the Life of a Birthday Girl in London".
Yep, I'm officially a year older. I had a lovely day, tainted only by having to go to work!
I got up at the crack of dawn - ok, it was 7am - to open some pressies posted to me, and discovered that Anna and Mike were making me pancakes with maple syrup on top for breakfast! After which I was forced to open more presents (I've been truly spoilt).
The walk to the tube was a lovely and fresh 6 degrees, with lots of autumn leaves falling. Work was ok, it's pretty full on at the moment - but as I left the house Mike told me not to work too hard - and you don't have to tell me twice! Claire who I work with got lots of people to sign a birthday card (many of who don't know me very well!) - which was lovely.
I arrived home to the amazing smell of freshly cooked cake - and told I wasn't allowed near the kitchen. Mike had made, and decorated, me a cake!! I was sung happy birthday to - and we headed out the door for gourmet burgers for dinner.
It was a wonderful day, topped off with calls, cards, emails and amazing presents....

the Leicester marathon...

Before you think to yourself "cor, what's this rubbish - Nina's doing exercise??" - no, it wasn't me!! A group of us took the train to Leicester on sunday to support a friend, Damien (of monopoly challenge fame), who was running his first marathon. All 26 miles (42kms) of it. Blimey, all that running!

Essentially we were his cheer squad and all wore matching t-shirts, so that if we stood in a row it would spell Go Damo! They were hand painted, and awesome! We arrived at about 10.30, and immediately went and had breakfast. So while Damo had been slogging it out for 2 hours, Team Damo tucked into pancakes and full English breakfasts!

About half an hour before he was due to cross the line, we headed for the finish line and waited eagerly in formation. We cheered all the other runners (some looking pleased, others looking perplexed at what they thought was 'godam' spelt on our shirts). Right on time Damo appeared on the hill - red t-shirt, blue shorts - and he apparently heard our cheering from 300m away! Later he said it was the cheering that got him over the line - after running for more than 4 hours all he wanted to do was stop and lay down. He did really well - I simply can't imagine running that far, I don't even run for the bus.

The photo's are of us after the race....

We didn't see much of Leicester - we missed seeing the Space Centre (yes they have one!), the cathedral, and markets. And we didn't eat any of their famous Red Leicester cheese.

It had been a really good week - we went and saw the stage production of Chicago on tuesday, with Kelly Osbourne in it. She can sing, suprisingly, but acting isn't her strong suit. We had gone out for Indian beforehand, which was amazing - the naan bread was at least 50cm long!

dinner with a view...almost...

I spent most of last week suffering through some sort of lergy, masquerading as a cold, except that I had eye waters and puffy eyes for 5 days - on alternate eyes each day. I spent all wednesday and friday arvo at home, not enjoying the misery one bit! I looked as though I'd been taking boxing lessons.
But I was very happy the puffiness had gone by saturday, as a bunch of us had made plans to go to dinner at the Oxo Tower, on the Thames. Yes, the same Oxo that makes stock cubes! A&M had friends staying from Adelaide, and thought we'd go there for Kate's birthday. We all jumped in a taxi, which was excellent, as I'm usually in the tube underground and never see anything. We drove past Harrods and Big Ben, all lit up, which were lovely sights!
When Anna booked the table she laid the charm on, saying that we were from Australia, and it was for a birthday, blah blah, and could we have a window table? We took the lift up the Tower and arrived at the most amazing view! St Paul's at night, Blackfriars bridge, and the London Eye and Westminster behind us.... And were most disappointed when we were shown to our table in the middle of the room with no view... Bummer... But we enjoyed a very expensive, very delicious dinner, and later stood on the balcony freezing our bits off to enjoy some of that view.
Can you believe that I forgot my camera?? Me either... I must have been in a lergy-haze still. So no pictures unfortunately...
One interesting thing about the Oxo Tower - apparently the Queen banned advertising along the Thames (in the late 1800's?), and Oxo got around this by making the word 'Oxo' patterned in bricks. Somehow they got away with it!
On sunday I joined a book club! Friends of Anna's pulled the group together, and our first book was Khaled Hosseini's 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'. Since Amazon took 3 weeks to deliver it, I didn't have it finished in time - but it is an awesome, awesome book. (Is about 3 generations of Afghani women). I highly recommend it. Next book we're reading is 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' - just for something a little fun and trippy!

puck-ing awesome...!!

During the week I snapped up a spare ticket to see an American ice hockey game. Yeeaah! It was at the O2 arena - where we saw Prince - and the game was part of their official season. The Anaheim Ducks (in white) v L.A. Kings (in purple).

It was awesome!! They skate so gracefully, and it's a very fast-paced game. I was expecting heaps of aggression, and bodies being slammed into the side walls - which there was - but it wasn't as violent as I expected. A couple of fights broke out but were quickly broken up by the ref's. Damn! A hockey stick got snapped in two, and 2 pucks went flying into the crowd. The goalies kneel on the ice for alot of the game, and do awkward things with their legs to block potential goals (it made me feel queasy watching them)!

The Kings slaughtered the Ducks, 4 to 1.

But Geelong beat Port by a much larger margin, so I hear! Go Cats!!