Life in London

This is a ‘blog by request’ I guess, after a fair few of you have asked for an update of ‘London Life’ for Ross and I. So, if you’re interested in what we’re up to, what we’ve seen and done in here in this massive city, what our plans are work situations are, etc…read on! We’re currently living in Kilburn, North London, about fifteen minutes by train right into the centre of London. London city is a bit of a confusing to people who’ve never been…so I’ll try to explain. Having lived in Osaka, another very big city, in the not so distant past, I guess we were already accustomed to big cities, but London is something else entirely. For one, it’s a city with very few tall buildings or skyscrapers, but rather than being built high, it is built far and wide! For Aussies, it’s perhaps more confusing as we’ve grown up in cities surrounded by suburban sprawl, whereas London is a city surrounded by…more city. It take about forty minutes to ‘leave’ London and hit something that resembles the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Kilburn is a great place to live, we both love it, though if we’re honest, we have been looking into another suburb nearby now that Ross and I have both secured long term positions at schools for the school year beginning in September. We’ll see…..We have a six month renewable lease and love our apartment, but also love moving! (or I do anyway!  ) Kilburn is North London, which means it is fairly multicultural with lots of Polish and Middle Eastern people, restaurants and supermarkets. Mostly, it reminds us of Brunswick or similar parts of Melbourne – lively, busy, great food. There are lots of pubs nearby where we head for a drink once or twice a week, a great park down the road with an outdoor gym and an excellent go-to ‘restaurant’ (and I use the term loosely) called Woody’s where you can buy amazing kebabs, gyros meat, salads and breads for so little money it seems criminal. The High Street is busy and bustling and all the main store chains are there as well as a great Japanese/Korean grocery store where we can stock up on rarer stuff. We do most of our grocery shopping online though, and have it delivered in the early evening. Though I miss grocery shopping, the crowds and having to travel by train with my groceries is completely unappealing. We’ve been loving the work we’ve been doing lately too. Ross finished up a supply position at Kings College two weeks before the end of term, a majorly posh private school in South London renowned for it’s amazing results and delicious school lunches, and did day to day supply at a mixture of schools until the end of the school year, whilst I bade farewell to my colleagues at my school in Outer London a couple of weeks ago now, and we’re well into our school holidays. Both Ross and I have taken on great positions to begin in September with the new school year. Ross will be at a gorgeous little Primary School teaching Year 5 and leading Numeracy in a beautiful suburb not far from us which is known for it’s windy roads and curious layout in the otherwise gridlike streets of London. Hampstead is a rambling suburb with lots of old trees, green spaces and famous faces. We’ve been there for shopping and a delicious breakfast…it’s most like Elwood or Brighton or somewhere like that. It’s also famous for Hampstead Heath, a huge green park where you can swim in big open ponds (one for males, one for females and one for mixed bathers). I’ve taken on a Head of Drama position at a prep school and will be teaching Drama and English in another lovely central London suburb close to home and close to Abbey Road – where the Beatles recorded their albums and took that famous zebra crossing shot! Prep schools are small private school for pupils aged 5-14 and are aimed at preparing them for bigger private or boarding schools and the admission exams they need to take for them. It should be a challenging post, but I’m actually really excited, even if the kids are going to be smaller!!! I hope I don’t trip over them…much. We’re both really excited about our new jobs, especially because they’ll give us such a good chance to meet new people and further settle into life here. It’s been lovely lately, meeting more people and having a few visits from people back home too. Ross has had drinks after work with a couple of people he’s worked with, and his birthday picnic was a success (when we eventually got there after our train line was cancelled for the day!) with lots of new friends coming to help us celebrate. We’ve had Dad and his partner Dee visit, Allira (whose moved to the UK to nanny) has come to stay and see London, Nicole Pownall and her partner Tom came to stay, and we caught up for dinner and drinks with Cath (from our time in Japan!) and her partner who visited last week too! It’s been lots of guests, entertaining, eating out and sightseeing and it has been such a pleasure to show people around. It’s so much fun to help people experience parts of London and in such a great city, it’s easy to entertain everyone. So, if you’re reading…come and visit (but bring BBQ shapes)! Rather thabn bore you with a blow by blow, I’ll tell you some of the highlights of our time in London lately:
-dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant at ‘Claridges’ in Mayfair with Dad and Dee
-a ride on the London Eye (amazing view)
-taking Tom and Nicole around London and to Brick Lane for great Indian food (with free pappadums, of course!)
-cocktails with Cath at ‘Circus’, a bar in Covent Garden where circus performers do trapeze from the roof
-taking Allira to Notting Hill and her first sushi train experience
-joining the gym, where I am training to beat Ross at Squash (I beat him twice today, though he appears to have made up a series of special rules and handicaps just for me ‘Oh yeah, Allie, when you serve a foul four times then fall over, you win the point’)
-buying bikes, which we now ride all over London
-playing tennis and squash and eating dinner with Brad and Bek
-joining the library (I forgot how good those places are)
-rewatching the entire Harry Potter series
-sleeping in…because we are teachers and it is Summer. 
-our weekend trip to Oxford, Bath and Stonehenge (a famous historical area where a group of stones are clustered in a mysterious alterlike formation that has been around for thousands of years but continues to baffle historians and scientists) where we took in two fabulous rural cities, saw the dining hall from Harry Potter, ancient Roman Bath ruins and Jane Austen’s family home and were entertained by a horrible couple from Australia who had nothing nice to say and seemed to only have come on the tour to see where Bob Hawke famously skulled a yard glass of beer and landed himself in the Guinness Book of Records whilst an Oxford student.