This is a blog post I put tgether to summarise our first 5 months in UK
5 months have passed since our arrival in London on 15 May. We have seen and done more in the UK than we could ever have imagined to do in little old slumtown. So a quick little breakdown of what we have done and seen follows below... We will be doing a lot more in the future, but the home office still has our passports while we wait on a residence card - this is quite restricting considering how easy it is to fly everywhere in europe from uk, and for so cheap...
I didnt sleep on the plane out of pure excitement from the number of gadgets, games, series and movies that are on the plane - and am still amazed that every seat had their own tv, and you could look at cockpit view.... and tail wing view.... and satellite view. Shaun greeted us at Heathrow and we hopped on the underground to his house in Earlsfield - a couple hundred metres from Wimbledon tennis. Shaun and Alexia played perfect host to us while we found our feet, and jobs. Lauren had to get a fulltime job before I could apply for my residence card and she got a job as an assistant physiotherapist (I think) at Nash College in Croydon. She worked as a Sales consultant (I think) at a running shop as well where she certainly excelled in her profession before that!!! Her current job includes going horse riding and sailing with the students - sound pretty awesome if you ask me.
I (Bud) have done a bit of labour work for a crewing company which involved mainly staging, lighting, sound and loading and off loading trucks... but got to see most of the country. I have seen - amongst other things - The northern most tip of scotland (John 'o Groats), Inverness, Glasgow, Aintree race course (minus the horses); Seen Katerine Jenkins and the Human League live from backstage (I stood on the side of the stage during the concerts - what a view!!!); helped set up Old Trafford Ground for the ashes cricket; prepared sound equipment for Rolling stones, Mumford and sons and a couple of other big bands (but didnt get to see them); met Ross Kemp and in general have worked at some prestigious 5 star venues - palaces, hotels, riverside resorts, etc.
Bud and Lauren together have seen UB40 and The proclaimers. We watched wimbledon live and saw John Mcenroe play on centre court; We have toured the entire coast around Wales and visited a chocolate farm. We climbed the highest mountain in England and Wales (Mount Snowdon) and had a beach all to ourselves, we went to an international music festival in celebration of the Beatles and watched heaps of beatles cover bands live. We have tickets to see the Pixies and Lumineers (who played a special part at our wedding), as well as tickets to see the Bokke take on the Welsh in cardiff. (After note - Lumineers was up there with the best live shows we have ever seen and the Bok test and the atmosphere surrounding this day was amazing)
Another thing we have done a lot of is pub crawling. There are pubs here that have been open from before Jan and his troops arrived in the Cape in the 1600s. The architecture is another facet of London that never ceases to amaze me. The time that must have been put into developing individual buildings to what they are today must have taken decades to complete. The skyline of London changes daily with new buildings going up constantly - I did a quick count the other day and counted over 62 construction cranes in the air. The transport system is also amazing. 24hrs a day, you rarely have to wait more than 10 minutes to catch either a train, tube, tram or bus to get you home safely.I now have a job as an assistant Quantity Surveyor at Lambourn Contracts. I get to spend half an hour in the morning and evening on the tram with Lauren so travelling goes quick and nice time to reflect on how lucky we are to have what we do. The people at lambourn are nice and I am looking forward to becoming very much cleverer in the future.Thats that for now, we have done more, but will save that for another day!!! One thing I do miss however, is a wednesday night steak and chops and wors and rasher on the braai (made out of only thornwood) and a bottle or 2 of richlieu with the guys. Oh and my mommy - I also miss her and the rest of the family and my new extended family and Toby. Till next time....keep smiling