Work -

I can't believe it, we've done it. We've held our first London reunion and it went very very well. Yesterday was crazy, I was up about 6.00am and checking emails and RSVP's then frantically packing so I could leave the house at the same time as Moose and Michael. I got a taxi to the hotel and virtually got changed in the luggage room before high tailing it to Covent Garden for our luncheon. I had 15 mins in which to dash around Covent Garden market but I managed to buy some Snuff - specially mixed for this particular London tobacco specialist - and hear some Opera being performed to the shoppers. Lunch went very well and so at 3.00 I headed back to the hotel, checked in and threw work stuff in a bag and dashed off to NZ House. I got there in time to meet the caterers, put photos on the wall and change in the ladies room minutes before the first guests arrived. It was a fabulous evening, it was so wonderful to see so many familiar faces and afterwards we all headed off to a sports bar to mix and mingle some more. It really was a fab night.

Oxford and Cambridge

I arrived at Oxford at 9.00am (having got up at 5.00 and at the bus stop by 6.15) and was met by Syliva, an economics lecturer. I stepped off the bus and found myself in the middle of a group of third year students all dressed up in their formal matriculation garb. Sylvia explained that it was exam week and that these were third year students sitting their final exams. They all walked together to the exam hall and wore a carnation button hole. A white carnation signified it was their first exam, pink meant they were in the middle and red was for the final exam. those leaving with a red carnation after their last exam were then covered in egg, flour and glitter by their friends!



My meetings went very well and later in the afternoon I had time for a quick look in a couple of shops and time to write postcards too at the wee leather top desk in the guest apartment. Andrew then met me and I was given a full tour of Brasenose including the 'new quad' built in the 1800's (!) I then dressed for dinner and was very fortunate to be seated at High table. The students wore casual clothes with their 'common gown' over top. The meal was beautiful, pork and pistachio terrine for entree, steak and summer salad for main and tiamisu for pudding. The wine was beautiful and very nice to try at least one of the 15,000 bottles in the College cellar.




AFter pudding, high table left the Dining Hall and moved into the Senior Common Room for desert. The table was laid out with candelabra, cheeses, fruit, turkish delight, wine, and port. Afterwards the youngest Fellow passed around the snuff. I've always wanted to try it and it was refreshing and had a menthol perfume. Its possibly the new latest and greatest thing given that England goes smoke free on the 1st July.
Anwyay after such a wonderful evening I retired to my guest accommodation and sat and wrote at my little leather topped desk and sipped tea from my wedgewood cup. And I sat and drank in the wonder of sharing my lounge with an incredible collection of books all carefully stored in little grey boxes. I opened one up, and it was a recent edition - 1829. An older publication was from 1647!!!
I don't think it was my imagination but as I gently turned the pages I'm sure I caught a faint smell of a cigar or pipe tobacco. Maybe it was snuff.



Cambridge



Trinity College above



The Cambridge May Bumps

Day Two

Well Day Two and all is well. I had a great sleep after a beautiful BBQ meal with Amelia, Michael and friends and woke early. Got busy with texts and ready and out the door and at London Bridge by 8.30. Chilled out walking around Trafalgar Square and then headed to the venue. Meetings all went well and the views are amazing. Half a memory card later... Did I mention the views are amazing?
Then off to the sports bar and caught up with Cameron. Great to see him and we decided to head off to Camden - well he was dragged truth be known but it was fun. The Royal Mews was shut by the time I got back but the shop wasn't alas, alack. So then clever clogs thought she'd make her way back home a different way by bus...she figured her feet were sore and she'd see more of the city that way. All very true however it ended up taking 2 hours rather than 30 mins. This corner of London is really interesting though, there is a really strong Caribbean community and yesterday when the ladies came out of church with their head scarves on , the colours were amazing.

Hi, Well I'm all showered and watered and feeling normal and enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Moose and Michael. And as I write this I'm undergoing this weird out of body mind thing because the world is topsy turvey. Its summer, I'm in shorts, the birds are chirping we're having a BBQ and everything is green and lush.
Also... I've been for a bus ride already and have my first green receipt from Marks and Spencers. It's the small things in life...

Travel

Well departure was fun, a special thanks goes to the farewell committee and once I passed through into the secret part of the terminal I really felt like i was off on an adventure.




Sydney was grey and shrouded in mist and rain, a few bumps and then due to 'engineering difficuties' departure was delayed for three hours. Me and 150 others spent quite a bit of time wearing out the carpet in the departure lounge and admiring the aussie crap in the souvenier shops. Funny the snippets of conversation you hear, like the lady who was looking forward to getting her luggage off the 'caserole'.





Watched heaps of movies - Miss Potter, Kenny, Music and Lyrics and read. Very cool watching the flight thingee, bit hard to comprehend that the land mass and settlement you can vaguely see below you is Kabul, or Hamberg or Berlin.

The whole long haul flight thing is a bit strange. It's like you step into this alternative dimension and all that exists are the people on either side of you, the mum with the seven week old baby and the guy with the hairy ears.

But soon enough just as you get really sick of it, you realise the plane is in the holding pattern for Heathrow going round and round and then there is the leafy green of London and then all of a sudden you're through customs and sitting on the tube and its a very random weird feeling - all of a sudden I'm on the other side of the world and everything smells and sounds the same and I'm just another zombie on the tube.

Piccadilly line from Heathrow was fab actually, oh england. Terraced red brick houses, chimney stacks, back yards, allottments, old mans beard and foxgloves, litter, and then fresh air for the fist time in 35 hours, and then Victoria Station, a double decker bus and Amelia standing ready to meet me.