Sunday Roast

It's no secret that Stevie loves his roast dinner on a Sunday, loves it so much that in deed he cooks it himself cos I am a cheese on toast kinda girl on Sundays. And just because we are on holidays I see no reason to change the habits of a lifetime.

He remembered the name a of a pub in Teddington where he had been to for some famous roast last time he was here, so I said it wasn't too far and that we should walk. Winter is coming but at the moment the temps are still warm enough for shirt sleeves and yesterday there was no rain, so we made hay while the sun shone. I remembered walking to Teddington when we lived on the other side of Twickenham years ago, but as time would have it, the distance seemed to have stretched like worn elastic. It was quite a hike, but good for those of us who had spent 3 days pickled.

The Builders Arms is a pub tucked away in a side street and it was heaving, just lucky that we had booked.

Orange lemonade and a diet coke and an order of roast beef with a side of cheesey cauliflower. I had done a bit of a reccie and it looked bloody fine.

The pub is pretty small and traditional. There is a wee garden out the back and as it was crowded inside we considered sitting out there, but then I spotted the ashtrays and asked if this was the smokers spot. She said that everyone just popped out the front door onto the street with their drinks if they wanted a fag and that no-one smoked out there, but I reckoned where there is an ashtray there is bound to be someone puffing away so we trooped back inside, to a table near the door and watched the parade of smokers move out the door and onto the street.

It's an odd arrangement that would just not be allowed in Oz. Firstly they take their drinks with 'em and there are a few tables and chairs set up outside to perch their drinks on. No-one seems to sit down, but it is a very jolly little area, except of course if you are a local and trying to walk home. Then I reckon walking through the cloud would not be too pleasant.

I noticed that the streets were really crowded with cars. There just wasn't room to park another bobby pin anywhere. When the pub's governor pulled up he inched closer and closer to the blue car in front until he nudged it forward enough to make a little space for himself. Again I reckon this sort of nudge it parking would be frowned on in Oz. It seems to me that there are just more people and therefore more cars in the suburbs now, perhaps as a result of converting homes to little flats and cramming more folk in. The price of real-estate is huge and I am very pleased NOT to be finding rent here anymore. A 1 bed 1 bath goes for about 1200 pounds a month, where as when I was renting it was about 1000 quid a month for a whole house! Yeh I know it was years ago, but still.

But to the ROAST.

Bloody brilliant! Real gravy! Superb spuds, and those wonderful Yorkshire Puds, which if I was a cook I'd learn to make cos I reckon a plate of 'em with some gravy could be dinner, Cauliflower good enough to almost convert to vegie and Beef so rare and tender I wondered where the rest of the cow was, cos I fancied taking some home for the rest of the week. Perhaps one of the best bits was that there was no pumpkin to be seen, no pumpkin contaminating the rest of the scrumptiousness. There were some carrots for colour and Steve found some leeks and some homemade horse radish.

It was soooo yum, that there was just no room left for pudding, which was a shame, cos that looked pretty fab too.

Home on the bus and a timely purchase of the London Times and into the bath - it was Sunday after all.

Reckon this weekend was the calm before the storm that is bound to be the Rugby World Cup, which starts on Friday.

Pretty sure that Twickers is gonna go a bit mental.

Double Decker, Chiswick, Girlie natter

Chiswick is where we used to live and it's a great spot for walking the high street and window shopping and buying just about anything from shoes to steaks and screwdrivers, and there is an over-supply of mobile phone shops. People in these parts must change up their devices A LOT. There are more than enough pubs and the atmosphere is a bit of a cross between mad festival and yummy mummies meet bankers on the sly. It's possible to sit all day and just watch the passers-by. It's 3 suburbs away from Twickenham, so a plan to meet up with a girlfriend meant - Oh Yippee, a Double Decker Ride.

With Oyster card sorted and primed I waited across the road for the 267. It was a long wait, 2 minutes! not in the same league as the wait wait wait, Are they on strike? wait for a bus down Bundall Road. I jumped on after a quick reccie to establish that the upstairs front seats were free, swiped my card, only 1and a half quid, and headed for the top. Saturday night traffic through the suburbs made the going slow, but for me this allowed time to reacquaint myself with the once very familiar. ( I am reading this horror novel about a woman who got killed and so when a bloke sat down in the seat behind me, it was a bit freaky.)

I hopped off in Chiswick High Road, my once familiar stomping ground. Yep it was just the same. Oh sure, some of the stores had been replaced, but the crinkled pavers and the hustle of people was just the same. I felt like I had come home.

I headed for the Old Packhorse pub. In my memory, this has been an old dero place, then a yummy mummy place where I once saw women changing shitty nappies on the cloth sofas. The gaggle had taken over the entire back end of the pub and stayed all day gossiping and trying to retain some sanity over one or extravagantly perhaps 2 cappuccinos. I reckon the Mummy clientele was just not sufficient to make a profit so now it's morphed into a friendly pub with a decent Thai restaurant.

The thing about London pubs is that they are not trying to be oldie worldie. They just bloody are. The furniture is authentic and the floor boards could speak volumes. And I know this sounds a bit romantic especially to Aussies whose pubs are new and slick and plastic and shiney bright. I do warn however that oldie worldie very often means worn out springs and chairs and table height mismatch, so a little game of Goldilocks is needed as you try out various settings looking for the one that is 'just right'. I got there early and played the game and then found a winner.

A couple of bottles of pinot and a Thai curry and through the tears and the giggles we put the world to rights. Well sometimes that is not possible even over a very fine chicken massamo but we gave it a red hot go. Ta Chris, I am so glad we caught up.

Off to the bus stop and home again. 3 quid for all that travel. I guess it's a tightrope walk in London, trying to compare public transport costs with the price of parking, and even if you can afford the parking, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to find one. And if you factor in the drinkies, then taking the car is just not an option.

I do love popping off to the pub on the double decker.

Off to the Market

Food - a necessary evil.

It is not a secret that trawling through the supermarket aisles, chucking necessary shit into the trolley and then parting with a large thickness of wonga gives me the irrits. But in a different country with different brands and let's be honest, perhaps the best sweetie selection around, well that could sound like fun.... for about a second and a half.

The car park for the flat is tucked away more securely than a trannie's bits and bobs, so the first order of the day was to get the car out of the said spot. Did you know that directions given to miss a fucking great concrete post come in at least 2 different language? Male and Female. So Steve is driving and I am saying shit like, 'Whhooooaa, there's the post, go a bit that way, ( accompanied by wild pointing) oh for fuck's sake just leave it there and let's get a bus.' Steve is waiting to hear, ' left hand up my bum and stop'. Well suffice to say that a row erupted, much to the joy of the delivery blokes who the whole time were dodging around us with large sheets of plaster board, you know, just to make the whole process more interesting.

Apart from the thinning hair and the expanding waistline and the blinder eyes and the lack of patience, another age defined problem seems to be a serious loss of spatial awareness. When I lived here I zipped around everywhere, playing no contact dodgems and learned the gentle art of waving a thank you, when what you really said under your breath with the windows up was, 'Fuck that was close.' But my ability to tell how far away that bus is or the car, or in deed the biker or the kid, seems to have evapourated. I am blaming the wide open spaces of Oz, and a significant lack of practice. As Steve headed towards the supermarket, I spent time analysing the inside of my eyelids.

I had forgotten about large UK supermarkets. Seriously you buy ANYTHING there. Tellies and tweezers, formal frocks and furniture. And yes there is food too.

Now when I shop in OZ I have a process so that the stuff is not all mashed up in the trolley. Drinks aisle first and then canned stuff and then other shit. But as we didn't know where anything was we started at one end and made our way.

We ended up having to do a trolley renovation at the beer spot and then I ran out of steam.

So to the checkout.

This is the pile of baggies from yesterday carefully tied in knots so I can forget 'em next time and do it all again.

I didn't think it possible to miss the Oz folk who shovel your shit through the beepy beepy beepy, but yep I do.  Here you are made to feel like some very ungreenie crim when you admit that you will be needing large numbers of those murderous plastic bags and when you are passed a wedge of 'em and the shovelling of stuff starts, you have to bag it all up yourself! And this really should be an Olympic event cos you have to move like Usain Bolt to get it all stacked away in back into the trolley before it becomes suitable only for landfill. There is no finesse in the shopping packing.

All the miss-mash into the boot and it fitted perfectly. Yippee.

Then home to get all those dreadful bags through a security door, into a lift, through another security door and then into the flat and up a flight of stairs to get to the kitchen. Whew!

The docket came with an ONLINE shopping voucher, which is looking pretty good to me for next time.

Spot the difference.

This is the very pommie view from the balcony of our flat.

More than 20 years ago when Belly and I first landed in Blighty, we knew we had arrived and were sorted cos we managed to get through immigration and my cousins were at the airport with their car to take us back to their place....Yeh a very Aussie visit in deed. We unpacked and ate, and spoke to Greg and Margaret about a little plan for the few weeks we were gonna be with 'em. We had POUNDS in our pockets and a little credit card for just in case, and we were off.

Yesterday when we pulled into Heathrow, Steve and I both pulled out our Red Passports - yeh his was real and mine though real too is more like his Blue one. We had pre-paid car hire and so caught the shuttle bus to the pick up office, not too far away. Manoeuvring all that luggage was a damn site easier than picking up the car which had been paid for in advance. Seriously the car hire place needs a little lesson from Greg and Margaret in how to get people sorted and on their way.

More than an hour later we were off and you guessed it, hunting for a place we could get a UK sim card for the phone...(only a landline the first time around - lucky or what!) Did you know that 'pay-as-you-go' sim cards come in 3 different sizes to fit all phones? Well they do and so once one was sourced and stuck in we rang our landlord, Will, who said he was on his way to show us in and around.

Maybe it's an age thing, but I began to sway and feel a little nauseous about 7 o'clock as I started unpacking. Steve had no such problem as he was off on a bus to meet a mate for drinks - now that's what I call staying power. I thought the fact that I managed to log into the flat's WiFi was a remarkable feat.

I ran across the road to M&S for some tea bags, bread and milk and then threw myself into a shower, but as I hadn't found the wash stuff, I managed to get all a bit unnecessary as I scrubbed away with my peppermint shampoo...maybe I should recommend this to the ladies of the night?

I fixed some toast  and settled on the couch, where I promptly feel asleep and finally took myself off to bed at 8.30 like a real old Granny. Of course I have been awake since 2.12am, ho fucking hum...Will do better tonight. 

So today I need to get my phone sorted and grab an OYSTER card so I can get around on the buses and train etc and I need to go to the bank to activate my pommie cards, cos usually they let me have a go once and then cancel the bloody things cos they can't work out how come all of a sudden someone is using 'em to buy a coffee - hardly the most common purchase of a fraudster. But as we are in a flat just above my bank, this should be a doddle.

I haven't been out of the flat yet so I have not negotiated the re-entry procedure - 2 different security coded pads and 2 different locks, but I am sure that I will get it sorted today. Before Steve went out last night I suggested that he write down the 2 codes on his hand and he got all offended cos it was only 8 little numbers, but I know I would have been bollocksed - pommie parlance for buggered.

Buses tootling past

The double deckers are trundling passed the flat and I do love 'em. The urban noise is far different from the rural nature of Bagshot, where Belly and I stayed the first time. But the biggest difference this time compare to 20 years ago is that I feel like I am home. The place is so familiar. Steve and I even managed a disagreement about the best route from airport to Twickenham so I sure do know my way around.

It is lovely to be back. Another day and I will be good to go.

Look out London!

No more sleeps!

Yippee, today we are off. or if you want to be pedantic, tomorrow we are off at 12.50am but as we are heading to the airport today, via dinner with the Belly and Zig I reckon today is close enough, although again not accurate if you consider that possibility of plane sleeping, cos that might be another one...but fuck it it's close!

So I slept well last night which is most unusual. I thought I'd be stressing about getting up and washing sheets and shit, but no I must have been pretty calm, and I will tell you why I think this.

My before waking dream went like this.

I was in Paris. I'd entered a cooking contest and the preliminary stuff was people cooking up banquets for the other contestants, to show off or intimidate.  I'd dutifully attended a couple and then decided that it all really wasn't for me....what a revelation! even in a dream I don't want to cook.

So I hired a pushie and took off into the peak hour traffic. It was exciting. The cars and trucks and buses were frantic and I just tootled along trying to mind my own business, but when I came to a 'Time's Square' type intersection I was in the wrong lane and so really upset the locals. Luckily for all, the lights turned red to match the colour of the faces all around, and I stopped and waved and laughed and shouted gleefully, 'It's ok I am a foreigner.'

This did not go down too well so I pulled over into a side street and momentarily lamented that I was going the wrong way for coffee.

But I rode along this little side street and enjoyed looking at the close packed strange looking houses until I came to one where the front door was open. Never being shy about things like this, in I strode. There was a package in the mail box so I picked it up and opened it - yeh definitely not too shy, and inside was some strange wooden sculpture like a long pipe with a number of bowls except that the bowls had not been carved out so more like spheres on a branch. Anyway, as I stood in the  lounge room I became aware of very loud snoring. Too nervous about getting caught or smacked over the head with a shovel by an angry old bloke, pissed cos I opened his pressie, I legged it outta there and flew onto my bike and went looking for a loo.

How often are really cool dreams interrupted by the very real need to pee?

If this all means that the plane is gonna crash, well please just don't tell me. Advanced warnings of those sorts are not welcome. But if it predicts a long lovely adventure with no cooking then I will be a happy girl.

London here we come.

The Bachelor and Now the Bachelorette Reality Bullshit.

I am very pleased to say that I have avoided like the plague, watching even the promos for The Bachelor. On the rare occasions when I have just not been fast enough to ferret out the remote and when someone has popped up on The Project or similar, I have all but thrown shit at the tellie. The whole premise of pitting all these heavily made-up women against each other in a bid to win the attention of some bloke, well it just gives me the screaming irrits. The bloke is all powerful and the women are just too often directed to look like idiots or bitches, flouncing around in frocks left over from Dancing With The Stars. And maybe they are both but more likely some sponsor has said they would like to so and so to do such and such and so some embarrassment makes it's way onto our screens.

For an example of REALITY, it's piss poor. It is in deed so piss poor that if the dating scene was anything even remotely like this, I would fear for the future, cos no women I know would entertain the idea of it and so no more babies. Building designs would be limited to single person dwellings designed to collapse in a little over 50 years as the human environments just crumbled to dust.

Yep it is truly shitful, in my opinion.

So of course what do I see being advertised now? Oh how Fabulous! The Bachelorette. Not The Spinster or The Old Maid. And it appears that some young bird from the tellie, who got thrown over last year by some bloke, has overcome her psychological denting and dyed her hair and now is gonna get to choose a bloke from a herd of fellas again all in front of the cameras.

At a glance it might make feminists everywhere thrilled that the power will swing from the girlie hips instead of the fella's bits, but I rather doubt that is gonna be the case.

Currently the fella chooses and the women do their best to be appealing. The fella has the power, but the way this new thing is being touted, the fellas still have all the power cos they are fighting to win the girl. It seems the girl is still expected to be a passive receptacle who awaits filling.

I could be wrong about this. It is possible that the sponsors are different and the bosses at Channel 10 might have been involved in a tag team relay, swapping in people interested in showing men to be fools and freaks and giving one woman all the power, but I so very much doubt it.

The most exciting thing about this new show, as well as the EVENT FINALE or whatever other trite title will be bandied about for the current series, is that it will all happen while we are away, so it will just appear as periodic updates in the entertainment section of my online news, and I can very easily choose not to open that.

I am pleased however that I will get to see the final of Dancing with the Stars tonight. This I have thoroughly enjoyed and it does seem mostly REAL, even if the scoring sometimes seems a little contrived and I don't understand how the viewer votes get added in and I wonder what ever happened to Bruno.

How much Reality TV is too much?
Do you know where Bruno went?

Books V Kindle 'The Girl on the Train'

I have nearly always got my nose in some book or other. I'll read just about anything.

I like a paper back over a hard cover cos the heavy ones are just too easily dropped into the bath and are not easy to squash around for ergonomic bedtime reading.

However mostly I read on the Kindle. I used to have a Sony e reader, but I never really got on with it and then someone bought 'em out or some other business bullshit and the little thing might have blown a fuse or whatever, anyway my Pink Kindle replaced it. It is back lit or side shiny or moon faced or otherwise lit up so that you can read in any light, and I have adjusted the print so that it's small enough to have sufficient words on the page to make it worthwhile, and big enough so that glasses are not necessary. Win win I reckon.

I reckon the contents on a kindle might say quite a lot about the owner, a bit like what you have on your I pod.

Mine has got more than a fair share of Autobiographies and crime thrillers. So I must be a fame chasing psycho.

The latest one I read was, 'The Girl On The Train' This is a bloody good read.

However, as has not happened before, I found myself wanting a paperback. I have not suffered paper longing since I first charged up my little pink machine. It has kept me company in the bath and the hospital, every night in bed, and at leisurely coffees and I have never found it wanting, it's always been perfectly satisfying, BUT can I suggest that if you are gonna read this book, that you might think about borrowing it from a library - how about that for a very old fashioned idea, cos in the first half of the book I really wanted to be able to flip back to the title page of the previous chapters to notice Name and dates and on the Kindle this is just too much trouble, well it is for me at least, but then I am one of those saddos who still think about going to a library for reasons other than Carrie's wedding to Big.

Sorry if you thought this was gonna be a proper review. I will say this, 'the Girl on the Train' is fast moving - pun intended, a little disturbing and full of enough twists to keep you guessing til the end.

What are you reading at the moment?
Do you have a Kindle?