Hoo Boy - Grab a beer and sit down for a while for this one...

Alrighty - we've been sort of busy since the last update. And sick - now that we're not sick any more, it's time for a massive update, and a further commitment to update this blog more regularly....

We went out on Australia Day Friday Night here to a pub in Covent Garden, and then proceeded onto a nightclub afterwards. It was a large night, and the venues weren't particularly spectacular, but we were stuffed if we were going to go to a Walkabout again so we just decided to go along with whatever was happening. We had a pretty good night, and ended up getting home at about 4.30am! It wasn't quite as Australian as this.....


but it was close!

We started off at a pub at Covent Garden called the Nags Head, and we stayed there until closing time. We went out with Janine (girl from Damo's work) a couple of her friends, Elliott (Damo's mate from work) & Antony (Fella whose car blew up on bonfire night). Then we headed off to an underground club underneath Covent Garden itself and stayed there until about 3am... We were exceptionally inebriated in true Aussie spirit!!!! :-)

Needless to say we ended up sleeping in until pretty late the next day.


Us out and about on Aussie Day (Note the green and gold....) :-)


A group of the usual suspects... (Damo, Elliott, Janine, Nikki, Antony)

The next weekend we ended up going to Hyde Park and sitting on the bench for a while and then going for a walk around the Serpentine (The lake in the middle of Hyde Park). It was very relaxing, however it was quite chilly. On the way home we ended up going to an Art Exhibiton in a gallery that is in the middle of Hyde Park and there was all sorts of crazy stuff pretending to be art, however there were some items in there from Andy Warhol and they were pretty cool to be up close and personal to....


Rollerblading in Hyde Park (not us... yet!)


Damo in Hyde Park

In the middle of the next week, we had another snow day! It was excellent once again, and this time Damo wasn't sick and was able to get out amongst it - for some reason though the snow around Hammersmith melted quite quickly, and even by the time we were heading off to work it was getting quite slushy however once Nikki got to work in the city it was still snowing, and once Damo got out to Ealing Broadway it was still very much snowing! And this time, Nikki got to see snow FALLING for the first time ever!


Us on the way to work.....


Snow falling at Ealing Broadway train station


The day after snow day at Damo's work... (What look like ripples on the lake are actually ice...)

The following weekend we had a house-party at our place. This followed on from a very tasty lunch that we had at a pub called 'The Hampshire' down on Hammersmith Road. It was quite strange - very impromptu, and only a few people as we don't really want to trash our place - we had Nikki, Damo, Paula, Olivia, Travis and one of Paula & Olivia's flatmates, Kristy, come over. It was quite bizarre, and the girls proceeded to get thoroughly trashed (Nikki didn't though), and Trav and I couldn't bare the flat being overrun with a cacophony of babbling females, so we headed down to the local for a steak and a few pints.


Damo & Trav in our flat looking exceptionally enthusiastic.... ;-)


Paula, left, and Olivia

The next day we headed out to Greenwich Village to check out the Meridian at the Royal Observatory and also the Cutty Sark. We went over there by DLR (Docklands Light Rail) and it's sort of like a tram system. It was very good actually. Unfortunately once we got there we found out that the Cutty Sark is closed until late 2008 for overhaul, but we did get to check out the Royal Observatory. We also went to a couple of markets that were around - didn't buy anything though - and hung out in the excessively large park at the bottom of the Royal Observatory drinking tea and eating scones. It was an excellent day, and I would definitely add this to the list of the Jack the Ripper tour of 'must do' things in London.


What we got to see of the Cutty Sark...


Avast, ye scurvy scoundrels - off to the plank with ye.... (Otherwise known as Damo looking like a dick...)


Central London from the water at Greenwich


Nikki outside the University at Greenwich


The main street of Greenwich


The Royal Observatory Park on an uncharacteristically nice day...


The old building at the Royal Observatory


We found ya's back home!!!!! :-)


The meridian line



And again... - 16:06:49 when this picture was taken.... :-)


The Millenium Dome as viewed from the Royal Observatory

The following week during the week we went out with a group of friends to see Cirque de Soleil, Allegria at Royal Albert Hall. The hall was spectactular and the performance was amazing - Neither of us had ever been to see a Cirque de Soleil show, and we both enjoyed it immensely.


The stage at the Royal Albert Hall

We're not sure if this news has reached any of you in Australia, but recently there was a mail-bomber over here that had sent something like 11 IED's via post to a whole lot of different authority figures over here, and a spate of them had to do with vehicle control - ie. DVLA (Department of Vehicle Licensing), Congestion Charge operators, Speed Camera operators etc.

Anyway, Damo rocks up to work on the Tuesday of the following week at Stockley Park, and what does he see? A Police Line perimeter was established at 20 and 30 metres around the outside of his building at about 9am.

After speaking with one of the guys out the front, he finds out that there was apparently a suspicious envelope found in the lunch room that wasn't there the night before, but was found by the canteen staff when they went to open up the next morning. Our mailroom x-rayed the package and found wires inside it and tin-foil hanging out the top of it. This was when they decided to evacuate the building. As it turned out, they later on found out that it was a hoax...

Anyway, Damo turns up, finds out there's not much he can do, so contacts a few others and they decide to head to the pub for breakfast. BP shouts breakfast, and then the decision was made to work from home. By the time he got home, it was about 11:30 so half the day was gone already. Sweet!

Our next weekend we got up early on the Saturday and decided to go for a run along the Thames because, shock-horror, it was actually a nice day! We headed out from our place and ran down to the Thames which isn't far from us and proceeded along it a fair way. On our way home we decided that we'd grab some breakfast from one of the pubs along the river (This one was called the Old Ship Inn or something). It was a thoroughly pleasant morning.


The view from where we were having breakfast...


The view the other way...

Anyway, while we were sitting there having brekky, Damo decided to text one of his mates (Elliott) who was having some work done at his house that morning. Nikki was already scheduled to go out for a girly lunch with some friends, so Damo asks him what he's up to. Gets the reply 'Just about to head down to Shoreham (near Brighton) for a Helicopter lesson. Do you want to come along?'

'Why not???' thinks Damo. Texts him back, and as it turns out, Elliott was sort of dating the girl that Nikki was going to lunch with so we tell him we'll meet him when he drops off Mel up near Lancaster Gate.

Elliott isn't exactly a stricken man - he's got a 2006 model Lotus Elise, was heading to his helicopter lesson, and we'd later find out, has quite the decent pad in a very nice area too.

*Damo Speaking*
So Elliott picks me up in the Lotus from Lancaster Gate and we head off for Shoreham. (http://maps.google.co.uk - type in Shoreham Airport).

Little did Elliott realise that there was a Chelsea game on this day, and while it would normally take us about 15 minutes to get from Lancaster Gate to Clapham, it ended up taking us 2 and half hours.

We drove at some incredibly ridiculous speeds on the way down the M1 after we got out of London (Pretty sure I saw it going 150MPH at one stage - it may have even been faster....), and his lesson was scheduled to be at 15:30. We end up getting there at 17:00. An hour and a half late! Anyway, the instructor was still able to take him, and it looked like there would be enough light, so after some debate about whether we would pay the extra 160 pounds for the hour for an R44 so I could go up (I was never keen - Elliott was....) he decided to just go for the R22.

In the meantime, I was starving, so just went to the Aeroclub and grabbed a bite to eat, and wandered around the aerodrome for a while just checking things out. Surprisingly, the 1 hour lesson went incredibly quickly and it wasn't long before he was back on the ground.

Once he landed, he threw me the keys to the Lotus and said 'You drive'.....

'Sweet', thinks me. Anyway, after driving it a bit gingerly for a little while whilst we waited for it to warm up, and also me remembering how to drive since I hadn't driven a car since last July (2006!!!!!!), Elliott says to me 'Drive it like it was meant to be driven!'.

I didn't need to be asked twice. We were only able to drive it around the Airport slip road due to crazy insurance issues over here (they insure the driver, not the car - it's a strange setup). There were speed bumps all along this slip road - nevertheless, I got it up to 100MPH between two speed bumps, got it sideways through a corner (and if you've driven a rear-engine car before, you'll know what this means....) and drove it like a race-bred car is meant to be. It was great to be back behind the wheel again, that's for sure.

This thing was pretty zippy up to about 6,000rpm, but once you hit that, it feels like a power-ban kicks in - apparently it's some sort of trick cam that causes it (standard on Lotus though), and you are just sucked back into the seat. I'd dare say it's probably one of the quickest cars I've ever driven.
*end Damo speaking*


Elliott in the R22


The Lotus (0-60MPH in 4.7 secs!!!!!)

Anyway, we finish up the day, and head home. The girls decide that they want to keep kicking on, so we make our way back to Elliott's place and meet up with them in a bar at Clapham, just around the corner from his place. We stay for a couple of drinks, and then we decide to head back to Elliott's place for some Thai for dinner and to watch a movie. His place was sensational. Very stunning pad. The thai was very nice, and we started to watch a movie, but the girls had been on the booze since about lunchtime-ish, and were starting to get a bit tired. Elliott and Mel nodded off, and we decided to head off home ourselves.

We woke up on the Sunday and got ready and headed into Central London as it was Chinese New Year. Naturally we headed to China Town. Holy Cow - it was paaaaacked. There was one time where we were so jammed in that we felt the air get expelled from our lungs - yes it was THAT crowded. We wandered around China Town for a while, grabbed a bite to eat, and bought a box of fortune cookies. It was quite a good afternoon. We were meant to meet up with Paula and Olivia, so we did, and we went to Trafalgar Square to watch some Chinese Dancing up on the stage, and then we were all feeling a bit rough from the night before so we headed to the pub not far from us for a Sunday Roast. It was great.


The crowd thinned out a bit at Chinese New Year

This weekend just gone, Nikki went over to Mel's place on Friday night, which left Damo at home to watch Clerks II (if you're a Kevin Smith fan - it's more of the same great stuff....) and order a pizza - as if that was ever going to be a bad night! Nikki was organising her girly trip away with Mel and Andria to Spain in June on Friday night, though how much organising got done is a different story...

Saturday we just did some chores around the house in the morning, and then went shopping to TKMaxx to try and get some clothes for the housewarming party we were going to that night at Andria and Steve's place. Their place was amazing, and very big - it was also located in Notting Hill. They're also not stricken.... :-) Steve works for Google as a partnership manager. It was a great night really. The only downside was when we headed off to go to a bar called Trailer Happiness, and it was unfortunately closed - no idea why, because it was a Saturday night, but that's London for ya! Also, by this time it was absolutely pissing down so we decided to call it a night.


Damo and John in the Notting Hill apartment


Andria, Nikki and Mel at the Housewarming partay!

The next day we woke up at a leisurely hour and headed off to the Notting Hill Brasserie for Sunday Roast for lunch. Wowee - it was a fairly fancy place, and the food was to murder for. Company was brilliant too - we went with John (the guy in the picture above), Mel, Alistair (One of Mel's mates) and Ali (Alistair's girlfriend). We had a great time, a few bottles of wine and a sensational meal. We both had Roast Beef, and it was exquisite.

That about gets us back up to speed with what we've been up to more or less. Stay tuned for more regular updates!

Nikki sees some snow!!!!

We finally got snow!

We woke up last Wednesday morning and it was like there was a white blanket over the city. London had an inch of snow overnight, and everything was covered, and the trees were all white. It looked stunning. Damo has seen snow plenty of times before, but never seen it in a city - he thought it was very cool.

Nikki on the other hand had never seen snow, and it was an awesome experience for her.

On her way to work she made snowballs and saw kids having a snowball fight and sliding in it, and she wanted to join in.... :-)

*Nikki speaking* Along my walk this morning from our flat to the station, I grabbed handfuls of snow and just played with it. I never thought it would feel like powder and be so soft.. I found myself wanting to start playing in it and joining in the snow fights with the kids but I was running late for work and had to remain in control and like I was cool and had seen snow before... 'no big deal'. Deep down though..it brought a smile on my face. (if it snows again, the gloves are off and snowball fights are on with the neighbourhood kids!) *end Nikki speaking*

Damo woke up with a bout of food poisoning, so couldn't go to work that day. It was bizarre - we had one night with an inch of snow, and it had melted by lunchtime, but we haven't had any since.

We keep waking up hoping for it, but there hasn't been any more since.



The view out of our dining room window


The tree out the front of our house

Our street....

Sam and Adam come to visit

Last week some friends of ours from Brisbane came to visit London and we caught up with them over a couple of nights (and Nikki with a small shopping trip to Harrods).

Our first night catching up with them we went to dinner at a small pub on Tooley St (where we first lived when we came over here) . Can't remember what it's called NOW, but it used to be called 'The Elusive Camel' when we were living near it. The food was great, and it was sensational to catch up with both Sam and Adam, even though we were still well and truly under the weather from our bout of the 'flu.

From here we went for a quick walk under Tower Bridge and along Shad Thames, and got some nice photos of Tower Bridge from here (we were running a little early....)

Adam and Sam at Shad Thames with Tower Bridge in background


Tower Bridge at night

From here we walked over Tower Bridge and headed towards Tower Hill Tube station for the start of the 'Jack the Ripper' walk - the best part about this is that it was with a gentleman called Donald Rumbelow, and he is pretty much the world's leading authority on Jack the Ripper. He has been consulted on most documentaries that have been made regarding the murders, and he gave Johnny Depp a personal tour around the area for his movie 'From Hell' which he said was about 95% fiction....


The sign where you meet for the commencement of the Jack the Ripper tour

Whilst on the tour, we walked around the London East End, and Donald showed us to the scene of about 4 of the 5 confirmed Jack the Ripper murder sites (there is conjecture about a couple of other murders and whether they were actually Ripper murders or not....). His commentary was sensational for making you visualise exactly what had happened and where, and when we were standing in Mitre Square (the scene of one of the murders), it was very easy to imagine that you were actually back in Victorian times and standing at the scene.

*Damo speaking* I must admit that I didn't know THAT much about the Jack the Ripper murders other than that they were brutal, but this tour was great. I'd definitely recommend that anyone coming to London try and include this into their itinerary if possible - it was great. *end Damo speaking*

We were absolutely engrossed in the tour for the full 2 hours, and at the end of it, it finishes up near where Nikki used to work near Spitalfields markets. There is a pub there called the '10 Bells', which is a pub that has been proven to be a common link of all the victims, and it is still in operation today. We decided that we'd go for a couple of drinks there after the tour.


Outside 'The Ten Bells'


On the wall inside 'The Ten Bells'


The stairs down to the bathroom of 'The Ten Bells'


Adam, Damo and Sam inside 'The Ten Bells'

We didn't quite see this, but it felt like it was close.....

After we'd had a couple of drinks here we decided we were going to go to 'Dirty Dick's' pub for a drink - it was not far from where we were, and apparently the story goes thus:

Nathaniel Bentley was an ironmonger who had a shop in Leadenhall Street. On the eve of his wedding, tragedy struck. His bride-to-be died. So distraught was Nathaniel that he locked up the room in which he had prepared the wedding feast, never to enter it again. A broken man, he neither washed or changed his clothes. When his cats died he just left them. It is thought that Dickens used this tale as the inspiration for Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. The English love an eccentric and his notoriety meant his business flourished. When Nathaniel retired in 1804, the landlord of the Old Port Wine Shop in Bishopsgate bought the contents lock, stock and dead cats. He put them on display at his pub and renamed it 'Dirty Dick's'. In 1870 the pub was rebuilt from ground level, the wine vaults are part of the original building. The 'dirty' contents were carefully relocated in the new pub. Sadly it was decided in the mid nineteen-eighties that a clean up was in order and the dirty artefacts were cleared away.



Unfortunately it was closed, so we'll have to revisit it another time.

We ended up going to Soho and looking for a pub, but they were definitely in short supply on a Sunday night, so we ended up finding some joint and only managed a beer or two and that was it.

We caught up with Sam and Adam again the next night where we attempted to go to Harry Ramsden's World Famous Fish and Chips (We'd never heard of them either....), but unfortunately the location that we were going to go to had shut down (and only recently as we'd been near there just before christmas and it was still open).

We decided we'd just go to Leicester Square and have something to eat there. We ended up at a place called 'Burger Shack'. It was actually slightly classier than the name would suggest. We chatted with Sam and Adam, and then said our farewells and wished them the best for the remainder of their trip - they were off to New York next!

We went to Camden Town markets on Sunday. They were great. Unfortunately we were a bit broke at the moment, so we'll have to go back there once we get paid. It's a very eclectic mix of things there, even though you can tell that they were probably better a number of years ago, there is still the odd cool thing there, but unfortunately they are priced accordingly.

Apart from all this, we've still been recovering from the flu and haven't been up for much else. We're off out to dinner tonight at Olivia and Paula's place (Paula is Stevie Lee's cousin - Damo worked with Stevie Lee at uSwitch), so that should be nice, and then on Saturday Night we're off out to dinner with Adrian and Rachel (once again, Damo worked with Adrian at uSwitch) which should be nice.

We hope all is well with everyone, and we've been missing family and friends a lot at the moment.

Feel free to drop us an email - sorry if we haven't emailed. We know we're slack..... :-)

Superhero Quiz

Apparently Damo is the Hulk - go on Hendry Boys - give it your best...... ;-)

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 80% Superman 70% The Flash 60% Supergirl 55% Spider-Man 50% Iron Man 50% Green Lantern 45% Robin 42% Catwoman 30% Batman 25% Wonder Woman 10%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength. http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/

Damo and Nikki's NYE was CANCELLED!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!

Well we've just spent the last week recuperating from the flu that we caught up in Edinburgh, Scotland. We're still fairly crook, but we'll survive (hopefully!).

New Years on the other hand, didn't survive. We caught the High speed train up to Edinburgh on the 30th December, and we had the option between a 4 and a half hour train trip, or about an 8 hour bus ride - it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out what we would pick....

The scenery in the train on the way up was stunning - the UK really is quite a picturesque place. The coast of Scotland up near Edinburgh was breathtaking. It was quite difficult to get pictures of it out of the train, but here are a couple of our efforts....







We arrived in Edinburgh Waverly station at about 3pm and went to our hotel room, unpacked a few things and went out for a bit of a look around - it looked like this was going to shape up to be a great few days.


Damo outside the train station


Scott Monument with fair attractions nearby

Later on that evening we went back to the hotel room and got ready to go out to the nightclub that had been organised by our tour group - it was called Espionage, and it was 5 stories high (well actually, 5 stories below ground....) We'd had a few drinks in the hotel room before we left, and Damo was carrying a traveller in his jacket pocket - he'd been in the club a grand total of about 5 seconds when Nic went to the bathroom, Damo cracked the tinnie precisely at the moment that a bar staff walked past, grabbed it out of his hand, and kicked him out.... Ripper - this was shaping up to be a great night - luckily we were'nt staying too far away, so we went back to the hotel and Damo got changed and we went back to the club and we got in fine... Damo is keeping up fine tradition - he's now broken the law not only in England, but Scotland also..... Idiot....

Woke up the next day (New Year's Eve day) and went to a place called Jonglese for the PP travel countdown of the Australia/Kiwi New Years eves. This was at about 10am local time, so we went along (feeling a bit shabby from the night before) and had a few bevvies to toast in the New Year back home with you all - so even if we couldn't be there to celebrate with ya's all, we were definitely there in spirit (well, cider as I think the case was.....)


Nikki and Damo having 10am boozing celebrations with you all back home...

It was after this we decided to go for a bite to eat at the Slug & Lettuce not far away from the place where we were having a bevvie or two - we ended up settling in for the afternoon, and as it turned out, so did the weather - it was about 1 degree celcius, absolutely pissing down, and blowing about 120 km/h.


Damo's bite to eat..... (and he ate every last mouthful....)

After this we headed off to try and find an off licence to buy some tinnies for the street party, but we'd already been warned that Hogmanay may be cancelled because of the particularly bad weather, but while we were walking around trying to find an off-licence, we began to understand why it would be cancelled - the rain was coming down horizontally, and it stung when it hit your face. It was blowing over port-a-loo's and there was a tv-camera stand that blew over just near us, and as soon as we saw that happen, we knew there would be absolutely no way that Hogmanay was going to go ahead. We went back to the hotel and came up with a plan - it was a crap one however.

We decided to go to the 'Walkabout' and spend our NYE celebration there - that was interesting.... We've been to 3 Walkabouts so far, 2 on big nights out, and both times it has been an eye-popping experience, to say the least.

Unfortunately Damo had come down with the beginnings of the flu on New Year's Eve at about 3pm and by the time the night came around, he wasn't up for the gigantic night as expected, and only ended up having perhaps half a dozen beers or so. We did stay out until closing time of the pub still (which was about 2.30 or so), so we still had a pretty good time, but it certainly fizzled about as much as the Hogmanay fireworks.....



Anyway, we woke up early-ish the next day to go to Sterling Castle which was about an hour and a half bus trip away from Edinburgh.

What can we say - it was an old castle - there's not much more to it than that..... and I'm sure there'll be plenty more of them along the way on our visits around Europe. It was however better than staying sick in bed, which probably would've been the alternative.


Damo in front of Stirling Castle


The view of the Scottish Highlands from Sterling Castle

Anyway, we were supposed to go out to another nightclub this night when we got back from the castle, but we were partied-out phil, so we decided to catch up with a couple of people from London that we knew were going to be in Edinburgh, so we rang them, and they were feeling similar, so we ended up catching up with them for a bit of a quiet dinner at a pub, and hung with them for the night, and then headed back to the hotel.

Hogmanay certainly wasn't what we were expecting, but it definitely was an experience anyway.

Hope everybody else had a sensational NYE. Saw some of the superhero piccies from the Hendry bash - looked great - wish we could've been there.