Oh my god it's sunny in London!

Amazingly, it was really sunny and warm in London today. I say warm, it was about 10 degrees. Warm enough that I only had 3 layers on instead of the 5 or 6 I usually do.

We went to the TNT Travel Show in Earls Court this morning. It wasn't that great, tickets were free though so that was good. Plus we got free candy floss!

It's mainly aimed at Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. Most of the offers were for group tours, which we hate, so there wasn't a lot of things we were interested in. Got a free Jumbucks Steak & Cheese pie though, so that was a bonus!

After that we walked to South Kensington, which is a nice walk. Through all the amazing 4 story houses, took about 45 minutes in total. So much nicer on a sunny day than taking the tube.

We ended up in Kensington Gardens, which I love. We found an almost deserted spot and spent a couple of hours in the sun. It was amazing!

Parakeets!

Sunday in Richmond

Last Sunday we spent the afternoon in Richmond. Richmond is not too far from where we live, it's about 15 minutes on the tube.

The day was pretty grey and not that nice. Unsurprising for London. Richmond and Chiswick are pretty similar. I don't think Richmond is as nice as Chiswick, but it was good to visit somewhere we haven't been.

I also think it would be way nicer in Summer than in Winter, you can walk along the Thames and it's a really nice walk. It takes you down to the Richmond Deer Park, we didn't see any deer, but I think we were walking on the wrong side of the park.

We stopped at Ben and Jerry's and got some ice-cream for our riverside stroll. It was WAY too cold for ice-cream. But delicious none-the-less.

Pancakes om nom nom

We had a fair amount of pancakes this week since Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday. We don't really celebrate this is New Zealand as we're not really a religious country, but this is something I can get behind!

We ate these outside on Saturday morning, since it was really sunny outside and we wanted to finally use our garden.

We had yummy chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate sauce... and Coke. I was really hungover.

Zebra Hijinks..

We had our social club drinks at work on Friday night. We went to a pub just down the road, and had a semi private room. Which was for the best as you'll see from the photos below! We all had to wear masks for the whole night and there were lots of other rules we had to abide by!

It was awesome, and I was pretty shattered the next day.

I think this photo makes me look really sinister..

Rules for the night

And we're back!

Well. I have to apologise for the horrendously long time since the last post. We've been extremely slack recently.

We've been searching for a new flatmate, so that's taken up a lot of nights, and I haven't really had time to do any new posts! But hurray, we've found a new flatmate now, after a long and painful search and she moves in in a couple of weeks.

Also, we haven't been doing too much recently to be fair. The weather has been very undecided, one minute it's quite sunny, the next it's rainy and grey. Unimpressed. One thing it always is at the moment is cold. It's gotten really cold again just when I was hoping Spring was around the corner. Daylight Savings starts in 3 weeks, so I'm hoping there's not too far to go before we get a reprieve from Winter...

So here's what we been up to in the past month (!) since I last posted..

We went to the Imperial War Museum to see the Holocaust Exhibition. The exhibition was amazing, but really horrific. Like really really hard to stay in there and walk around. There was a quick exit about half way round if it got too much, but we felt we needed to go through the whole thing. We were in there for about 2 hours, and I was crying by the end of it. They had video of actual murders, and stories from survivors. They also had a train carriage that you could stand in, one they used to transport people in. Hands down, best exhibition I have ever seen.

No photography was allowed, so we don't have any photos.

Afterwards we couldn't even go through the rest of the museum, we just left and had to go to a cafe to just chill out.

I had my first curry on Brick Lane. I went with some girls from work, to a place called Aladin. Apparently it is one of the best, and I have to agree. It was so yummy!

We went to Kiwifruits, the NZ store in Piccadilly Circus. We stocked up on Jaffas and Whittakers Dark chocolate. Then stopped for a photo op at the New Zealand house behind it. The guy at reception was looking at us like we were crazy.

We went to Trafalgar Square, since we've only been there once when we first arrived. Will be so nice to go in Summer.

We went to Hampstead Heath with some people from work. The day started out SO sunny and lovely. Only when we got to the Heath, it started pouring with rain. Hideously underdressed, and with no umbrella, we got soaked :(

Thinking it may only be a quick shower, we ploughed on anyway. We had dogs to walk! But it just got worse and worse. I have never been so wet. We went home afterwards and literally peeled off our clothes!

So glad I wore my gumboots, they have never been so muddy.

Last week, we went to the Christchurch Vigil at Westminster Cathedral. Someone said there was 5000 people there, not sure if there was that many, but there was heaps. We didn't make it inside the Cathedral, but they had speakers outside so we could listen to the service.

They read letters from Christchurch citizens and survivors, it was really emotional. Hayley Westenra sang the National Anthem, and she was just so fantastic. That's what set me off crying. The organisers have said they raised 30,000 pounds that night. So amazing.

You may recognize the below photos from the NZ Herald website... world famous in NZ!

We went for a walk in St James Park this weekend. It was actually sunny, and STAYED sunny all day. So great to see the first signs of Spring, there were daffodils everywhere.