Chasing the Sun: London Calling

Wednesday March 23 - Tuesday 5 March

With our lovely new visas and hearts full of home we entered the UK early on March 23 and re-entered the real world as soon as we stepped through the doors of that Piccadilly line service to the city. I couldn't help but recall Shawn of the Dead as all the stoney faced, stoney eyed workers joined us on the tube and remembered catching the train with my cousin Alexandra who snickered at the Sydney version of these workers and chanted "I am a cog in the wheel of industry". Hmmmm my passport has gained five new entry stamps since our journey began, I haven't sat at an office desk since September but I'm still not yet ready to return to the world of allocated desk and window space.

So London came as a bit of a shock to us after the anarchy of Africa.

Little did we know that when we arrived at The Girls' (AKA Bek, Roz and Jess's) place in Maida Vale that we would be welcomed by not only our fellow house guest, Ange, but also Bek and a one Sally-Anne Yates making a surprise trip over from the States before heading back to Oz. Happy Days!

After an obligatory trip to Primark (except for a couple of jackets I'd only packed clothes for Africa and even had to pick up a pair of boots in Stellenbosch before we left because the only other shoes I had were havaianas, sandals and my running shoes) we met the girls after work at The Warrington for a Gordon Ramsay pub meal. Such a beautiful pub, but unfortunately we were all a bit disappointed by the food.

Over the next few days we took exploratory runs through the parks in Maida Vale, checked out Buckingham Palace and the city surrounds, wandered through the Borough Markets, caught up with Gwen, Kath and Felicity, did the Tower of London, saw the Oxford/Cambridge boat race down at Putney, got to know the local deli, soaked up as much spring sun as possible and went to check out the giraffes through the fence at the London Zoo (and saw the strangest animal ever - an okapi, he looks like a brown giraffe with a zebra's bottom).

A few days into the London trip we looked up Jono's cousin up in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds and caught the bus over to visit her on the Tuesday. The trip out of London was just what I needed and it really shook the culture shock out of me. So lovely seeing all the stone fences, rolling green hills, daffodils and blossoms.

We caught up with Jess just as she finished work at the Cheltenham Ladies College and she gave us a walking tour of the school and grounds. SO grand! Her home was only about 15 minutes walk from the school and she has a lovely high ceiling apartment in a beautiful old set of flats. That night Jess had a work function, but for Jono and I it was so blissful to be 'forced' to stay at home! It'd been a while since we'd had that luxury!

The following day we checked out Cheltenham, did some shopping and bought little Will a first birthday present for Jess to take home to Australia that weekend, headed to the pub for lunch, sought out a much needed haircut for Jono (my efforts to cut Jono's hair in Stellenbosch apparently not only didn't appeal to Audrey but also to Jono), grabbed a beer with Jess once she'd finished work and then headed back to her place to put on a birthday dinner for one of her friends.

On the last day we took the bus with Jess to Oxford for some classic touristy sight seeing, catching Christ Church college as we went.

Before we knew it our one week trip to London had turned into two and it was time to give The Girls back their lounge room and for us to get back to what we're here for and go and chase some sun!