And then I was a Banana.....

So as you can imagine, after the Waitangi Day Pub Crawl, Sunday was very much a day of chilling out and setting myself up in the new place with mums friends. There was also her 2 kids, girl, 5 and a little boy 3, and her partner.

Sunday I was meant to stay at home all day and get lots of rest and stuff, but I ended up getting a txt from Jen inviting me to a taping of a Sufferagte Sit Com at the ITV studios, as you can imagine I was intrugied so I totally went along. It was a lot of fun - a great show called "Up the Women" but I didn't get home until 11pm, which wasn't so good when I had to be up at like 5am to get to work.

And then started the ASDA promo again. It was teh same gig I did the week before I went to Australia, but at a different station and instead of a milk bottle, this time I was a banana. And this time the tube station was a huge mission to get to, but all in good fun right? Luckily, there was an awesome group of girls at the same station so we all had a good laugh at ourselves while we froze our toes off. We didn't have any goodies to give away this time, and weridly it was less money for more hours, but whatever, I needed whatever cash I could get my hands on!

So I did that promo on Monday and Tuesday, 6.30am-10.30am and then again 4.30pm-8.30pm. Needless to say I didn't get a whole lot of other stuff done those 2 days haha. We didn't do Wednesday and Thursday because there was going to be another tube strike, but it turned out that it was cancelled - thank god!
Wednesday I started work at 7am - which was a little easier to get too and a little later so I think I got up at 6 - a hour sleep in! (Oh god!). I was working hospo and doing a buffet lunch stuff, not really what I enjoy but I do to pay the bills. This place was great because they paid the London Living Wage -  £8.80 an hour! Unfortunatley I won't be working there again thoughm, because about half an hour before we finished another girl and I were killing time so we decided to try and balance the plastic jugs on our heads (of course no one was around....) but one of the managers saw us, well, me not her, and so I'm not allowed back. Eh, no biggie, wasn't overly fussed. As I said, I don't really enjoy that kind of stuff anyway.

And then the next day I ended up with the Aussies in Hampstead again, looking after the girls for another day. They really are such a lovely family and such lovely girls to hang out with - even if they are only 3 and 4 hahaha. But as I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry after them, I hung out till about 6, and then I went to a flat viewing in Stockwell. It was a nice enough place (and I even got offered it in the end, but had to turn it down)but it didn't have a lounge and only a very tiny kitchen so it wasn't really my style.

Friday was another day of being a Banana, but this time as it was Valentines day, we got to hand out chocolates with the flyers, and make remind everyone about how un/happy they are in their love lives hahahaha. We actucally ended up getting kicked out of the station so I was home by like 8pm which was awesome! In the morning, we were given a small muffin in return for our chocolates, which I ended up giving to one of the tube guys at the end of the shift, and he was delighted...so much so he found me waiting for my train on the platform ahahaha.

I had a Nanny interview in between shifts on the Friday, which was interesting. For quite a wealthy family, who were worried about moving from South Kensington to Notting Hill because it was a little less safe because there are counci houses in Notting Hill.....ohh rich people....

Next up

So, after the Aquarium, I ended up going down to stay with a mate on the South Coast, in Fareham for 5 days. It was brilliant, it gave me some time to chill out, catch up on a whole lot of movies, scrapbook and read some books, and generally not worry about what was happening for a while. I spent a lot of time online applying for jobs and flats here, there and everywhere - in London haha.

It was brilliant, Oli looked after me well, even though he had to work, we still managed to spend a day around Fareham and Portsmouth, hang out on the beach and have some great chats. He had to work most days I was there, so it meant I was home alone, but I was totally cool with that, cos I had been quite sick so it gave me some time to get over my cold and catch up on some much needed sleep.

Didn't take a whole lot of pics while I was there, but here are a lucky few -

I headed back to London, on quite a late bus cos that was when I could get to the bus station with all my stuff. Bloody hell though, what a mission! I got off in Victoria, to a damn tube strike, meaning limited tubes were running and I wouldn't be able to get from Victoria to Leyton with all my stuff. No cabs were taking bookings either as they were all so busy covering the tube worker's asses and many smart people had thought ahead and prebooked their cabs. So I decided I would start walking down towards Victoria Station and see where I could get from there, but then I ran my suitcase over a bung cobble and the wheel broke off...I was not impressed! So I ended up hanging outside Victoria Coach Station, in tears, trying to track down a taxi or someone who could help -with an extremely quickly dying phone battery. I was that the next time I went to check the taxi rank that one had just pulled up and I managed to get a really lovely cab driver to take me all the way out to Leyton - a £50 fare - ouch! I ended up getting to Ingrids around midnight, which was horribly later than I had expected.

The next day was Waitangi Day, and I had arranged to go back to the Aussies place to go and look after the kiddos for the day, which was quite nice. I had to leave early though, cos Ingrid and I had booked to go to a pub and watch "Boy" with a whole bunch of Kiwis. It was great - we even got a free pie and there were Twisties and Pixie Caramels (as well as a whole lot of other goodness) to buy - and consume. Good for the soul!

The next day, was my first day selling tickets at The London Eye! I had such a great day, learnt so much - mainly about different notes (Scottish Notes etc) and formed some great friendships with some of the staff there which was really helpful. 

That night, I moved places - yet again. This time, I came to stay with one of Mum's friends from when she was a teenager. Well, really her parents were friends with Katy's parents, but Mum and Katy were good mates too. These guys are literally the only people as a family we know in London so it was so good that I could come here and stay for a bit. I ended up in a massive room upstairs with a whole lotta stuff - but of course most of my stuff was still at the Aussies place in Hampstead, but as I ended up going backwards and forwards from there quite a bit, I managed to bring all my boxes back here. 

I just realised now that Have to go and do some grocery shopping...also my tablet battery is about to die, so its a good place for me to stop and post this and continue tomorrow!!!

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Since Australia....

So, most of you probably know this story by now, but for those who don't read on....

After Aussie, I got to go home for a week which was pretty awesome. I flew into Christchurch to meet Mum and Dad who were still there from Christmas, and so I got in at like 1am on Monday morning and we drove straight down to Timaru and stayed at Grandma's. Had an awesome couple of days there, hanging out with fam bam, picking strawberries, playing in new tractors and eating epic homekill. So good!

I was only there for a few days, on the Tuesday we had to leave about 3pm to go up to Picton to catch the unnaturally early morning ferry home. We stopped in Christchurch to have dinner with some more family so that was cool to see everyone - super bonus! We eventually got on the ferry around 1am, and so Mum and I managed to find some chairs to pull together to use as a makeshift bed so we got a little bit of sleep. Somehow Rusty managed to stay awake the entire time....

Home was cool! It flew by pretty quick and I hardly got to see anyone but I managed to catch up with a few people which was great. I also managed to sort out my suitcase and bring some extra things over that I wanted and drop off some summer stuff at home so Mum can bring it over with her at Easter.

Kahu enjoyed Strawberry Picking!

Picking them Strawberries...yum

The creepy ass ducks in Palmy that Kahu insisted on making friends with

The weird ducks that kept trying to bash heads but skillfully avoided

Flying over one city or another....probably Brisbane

Its reassuring to see your bag being offloaded at one airport

Singapore Airport are really into their flowers in the Airport thing

Unfortunately, while I was at home, I got an e-mail from the family I had been in Aussie with saying that I wasn't going to be permanently employed by them (I had been on trial in Aus) so that put a real dampener on my time at home as I was freaking out about what I was going to do when I came back to London!

But I managed to enjoy the rest of my time at home, it was nice to be on holiday for a bit for me and not have to worry about where 2 little children were at all times and just chill out.

I made it back to London, after some seriously epic flight time. I left Wellington at 4pm on Sunday, flew into Brisbane and had like 6 hours there - luckily Kate came to pick me up and we went and got KFC and lollies haha. Then I flew to Singapore, and had like 6 hours there, and then flew to London. I got to Heathrow and there was a massive customs queue, it took like an hour, so then my bag was all by its lonesome on the caersol. I ended up getting back to the house around 6pm Monday evening London time, and just crashed. Slept pretty soundly until about 6am and then forced myself to go back to sleep until 9 haha.

Tuesday morning, I chatted with the mum about what went wrong - as I thought everything had gone pretty smoothly while we were away. It tuns out I did the nanny part of the job ok, they just weren't comfortable with me living with them. According to her, I tried too much to be a part of the family - which is kind of what I thought I was supposed to be, and it was a hard situation as we were on a massive family holiday! But I really had no foot to stand on, so that was it. I was lucky in that she said I could work out my trial, which meant another week with them while I found a new job and house etc, and she was happy for me to stay an extra week.

Well, it ended up that that Tuesday afternoon, while I was in Central London poking around, I got a call from the Nanny agency saying they had found me a temp job. At the time, I wasn't aware of how long it was for or anything, but I jumped at the chance - and it wasn't really worth it! I ended up in this house in Camden with 3 kids who were 8, 6 and 3. I turned up to this house and pretty much 5 minutes later the mother left me to serve the kids dinner - it wasn't exactly a pleasant situation to be in!

It wasn't the happiest week I've had and I felt pretty shit cos as of Friday I had nowhere to go as I was not going to be able to cope staying in that job much longer. I think half the reason I didn't enjoy it there was because I was still really gutted about not being made permanent at the other job and trying to make sense of that, as well as being super jetlagged. The mother wasn't happy with the fact that the agency hadn't told her that I had just flown in from NZ and so she had to let me finish early etc so I could sleep as I wasn't coping well without sleep! But anyway, it pretty much just turned out to be disaster week, and I was very glad when it got to Friday!

I ended up going back to the Aussie's place as I still had some time left to finish with them and they were more than happy for me to do so - which was a lifesaver! So I went back there and ended up working 5 days for them which was brilliant, as it meant I was paid and also had somewhere to live for another 2 weeks.

I worked for the Aussies for another week, and had some days off inbetween where I was flitting around meeting other agencies and friends and just trying to keep sane in the whole situation! I was really lucky that I ended up finding a post on the Kiwis in London FaceBook page about getting people to work at the London Eye, because that has been my saviour since then!

Anwyay, after I moved out of the Aussies, I stayed at one of Mum's friends places for a night as I had to go to London Eye training the next day, and so I did that which was super quick and easy, and then Jen and I went to the Aquarium and it was awesome. We had such a fun time there, and here are some photos to prove it -

The Skate Rays at the manky fish, not me....

 I think this is a pretty good place to stop....so I'll stop here! I hope to finish the rest of it later!!

Its ok bloggy, I still love you!

So life has been pretty hectic lately, trying to find a job and a place to live. I have been leaving wherever I've been staying quite early on and not getting home till late, cos I've been going to job interviews and flat viewings and all sorts. I have a room for 4 weeks now, but still no job :(. I hope to be able to change that situation soon! My aim for this weekend is to finish off a blog post about Aus, and then go into what I've been up to here since I got back!!

Australiaaa - Part 1

I figure I can bundle the whole 3 and a half weeks of Aussie ness into one post right?. And it seems fitting to do it today, with tomorrow being Australia Day and all. This post will probably be all over the place because of what comes to mind at certain times, so just go along with it :D.

So off we went to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 10.20pm, and we had checked in online, so we didn't really get to the airport till like 9.30. It was enough time to get all our bags checked and nip through dutyfree before pretty much heading straight on. I was in economy class, and the girls and their mum were in Business. We were flying on an A380, so it was double decker which was pretty cool. I spent a lot of the flight going up and down though. We flew Singapore and the airline hosts/ess were really good about me getting up to business to hang out with the kids and stuff. I went up for a bit at the start, then wen to have my dinner, then slept/watched movies, then up for a little longer had brekkie, then up for another half hour and then we landed! I didn't realise until our first meals were served, but I was sitting the wrong seat for the flight. I was sitting in the seat I was meant to be in on my second flight, but oddly enough, noone corrected me. Huh.

It was a pretty good flight, no real turbulance or anything. I managed to sleep for a little bit which was nice. The food was pretty good too, which is always a bonus.

When we got to Singapore, we mooched around the airport for a bit, had some BK, went to look at the butterfly garden and playground, before the family had to get on their next flight. I couldn't get on that flight, so I had another 3 hours or so to kill at the airport. I wandered around like a bit of a lost soul really, tried to do some dutyfree shopping, but it was all pretty crap. I found a cinema which was showing a free movie, but that wasn't any good. There were some lounge chairs so I managed to get a 15minute nap there which gave me enough energy to get me through until my next flight.

The next flight was pretty sweet, slept a lot, ate food, watched movies. Just the normal.

At Brisbane airport, cos I was sitting so close to the front, and I had an electronic passport, and my bag had been put through priority (thanks to checking in with the business class passangers) I got outside within like 20 minutes of landing, at like 11am. I had to catch a taxi to the house, and it was kinda weird, cos I had no idea where I was going and the taxi driver kept asking me directions hahaha. But I got there eventually.

Once I got there, the 2 yr old was already asleep, and so I had a very tired 4 yr old to watch. Eventually she went to sleep, and I had to keep myself awake, which I managed to do until about 6pm, and then I crashed.

Had a really great time. It was hard living out of a suitcase though, I'm the first to admit its really not one of my strong points, and I do find it quite difficult. Once we got up to the Sunshine Coast and had our own house for a week and a bit though, it was nice to be able to unpack things and sort them out so that I could actually figure out what I had!! I ended up taking 2 suitcases home from Brisbane because it just weighed so much. It was hard living with the grandparents of the people that I worked for, hard to know my place and when to step back and stuff, and that's the main reason that the family gave me for not wanting to keep me on now that we are back in London. Its a bit sad for me, because I wasn't told anything about it while we were there so I don't quite know what I did wrong, but I guess you can't change it now!

Singapore Airport

Singapore from the air

The crap-ton of barges

Anyway, when we first got there we stayed in St Lucia with the mother's parents. It was quite full on there, as there are a lot of grandchildren and the grandparents lives revolve around caring for them, so there were constantly other children around. It was fun, there was a wide range of ages from 12 down, and boys and girls. It could also be quite hectic and it took the 2 little girls that I look after a while to adjust to the chaotic nature of the place and having so many people around constantly. The jet lag for the girls was quite horrific, and they never quite got over it while we were there - I don't think the heat helped and the fact that the sun was rising at 4am!

Bris-BAYNE

Flying in from the West of Australia meant lots of red earth!

I managed to catch up with quite a few mates in the 10 days of so we were in St Lucia, on the first full day I was there, I was given the day off which was great because it meant I could have the day to myself to sleep and adjust to the time difference, but also get things sorted - like getting a pedicure for my manky London winter toes! I wandered round Brissy and managed to catch up with my mate Kate for dinner - woo!

It was kinda of a weird trip in a way, because I felt like it was totally full on, but we didn't really do much. A lot of the time in the first week was spent just hanging round home, because the girls were sleeping for 2-3-4 hours in the afternoon, so I just had time to chill out. I made some food - but the kitchen bench was so short it was so uncomfortable! There were always other children around too, so it was never really quiet. The fact that they had a pool at the house was good too, because it meant when the girls woke up from their sleep they could go for a swim and wake up their bodies! Luckily they were waking around 4pm when the pool was in the shade, because getting them into their togs (swimmers/whatever you want to call them!) was a mission, we they just nudy swam, which was hilarious. 

Thursday, we ended up, on the spur of the moment, heading out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which was pretty cool. We met up with an Auntie and 3 of her 4 kids - all the boys, but it turned out once we got in that she realised she needed to go to a Dr appointment, so the mother and I were left alone with the original 2 girls and now 3 boys! I had to give them a stern talking to when they went rampaging around in the feed the kangaroo enclosure, about how to feed animals with a flat hand and all that...I mean, I should know these things! But we had a fun time while we were these, except when little miss 2 year old decided to wee her pants right in the picnic area...fun times! Look, I even have photos!!

Token tourist

Koalas are just so cute!

Then I had my first weekend, which was quite full on! First up, I went to the XXXX Brewery, to meet up with a friend from work - Richard, and his family. They moved over in about April 2013, so it was neat to see them again. We went out to Carindale, which is a super fancy shopping mall. It was carpeted! And it had a Glassons! (Memo to self - Glassons in Aussie isn't as good). So after successfully purchasing some sexy pink shoes from Target, they took me home, where I managed to get to read my magazine for a bit, before my friend Kate came to pick me up (It was great having so many friends with cars!). We went out to get some picinic stuff to go to the carols in the park. We got there and all was good, until this massive black cloud started coming over and we could see some epic lightening....so we bailed! Turned out it didn't amount to much, but it was better to be safe than sorry! We ended up watching Love Actucally anyway, so we still had some Christmas spirit.

Ok, so maybe bundling this all into one was a silly idea, I'm gonna leave this here for now, and will do another post again soon!!!

Whoops!

So, I know I pretty much havn't posted about Aussie at all, but I've decided to keep my posts more brief, and let the pictures do more of the talking. So I need to sort out my pictures. Which is what I'm about to do, as Ihave 2 hours left at Singapore airport. And I'm tired :(

Annnnd its leaving week!

Wooo! On the Monday morning, I had an epic walk round the corner to the Kilburn Post office thing cos I had to pick up an amazon parcel I'd slept through the delivery of on Friday haha. I had to get it then cos it had Christmas presents in it for the family I was still with and I was leaving the next night!

After that, I headed up to the new family for my first day there. I got shown round the house and stuff, and then the 2yr old and I and the other Nanny/housekeeper person went down to this playgroup thing in Parliament Hill for an hour or so. It was nice to have the other chick with me as she could tell me about how the family work and how they do things, it was nice to get that from someone on the outside, as it were. After we got home, and put Stephanie to bed, I chatted with the mum and we sorted a few things out which was good. We went to pick up the 4 yr old from school and went to swimming, before taking them home for dinner and then I left to go home and finish packing! I had taken a few boxes and bags up with me so that was a good start. Ive somehow managed to accumulate 4 boxes worth of stuff since Ive been in London, whoops!!

The Tuesday I had off, which was just as well!! I had so much packing to do, friends to catch up with, all the kinda fun stuff that you need do do when moving houses/changing jobs and packing to go away for a month all at the same time haha. Tuesday night I caught the bus up to the new place with boxes and a couple of bags (and when I got there and saw the girls, they gave me a night time concert of Do-Re-Mi...perfect!) And then went back to the old place for dinner, before cabbing it back to the new place with my suitcase and a few heavy boxes. It took me a while to get there though cos the taxi driver was real suss about putting anything on the carseats in case it scratched it....*shakes head*

Wednesday, I had my first full day at their house. We went to ball games in the morning with the 2 yr old, and then the 4 yr old finishes school at 12.30 on a Wednesday, so we had to go and pick her up. When we got home, we chilled out and played and did all kinds of fun things. We ended up having to go to their friends house up the road a bit for a little Christmas do, which meant lots of cake, chocolate, mulled wine, and they even got me a present! It was super sweet of them.

After that, I left them and went to meet up with Jen in the city to look at Oxford St Lights and go to Winter Wonderland. It was pretty cool. And massive! I wasn't expecting it to be so huge! We wandered through there for ages, looking at all the rides (which we were not going to go on), playing sideshows to try and win giant Minion toys (failing) and eventually figured out that the best thing for us to do was to just go and drink some mulled wine and watch the ice skaters. There were a whole heap of stalls there too, they were pretty cool to look at. My favourite one was the fake snow that you would pour into your hand in dry form and then pour warm water into your hand and it would expand and form awesome snow. Super fun!! There were a whole bunch of rides, but naturally the only one Jen and I went on was the enclosed Ferris wheel. We went to go on, and you get your photo taken first. Obviously Jen and I primped and preened ourselves in front of the camera, and the guy thought we were super cool (he's onto the right idea) and so he told us to skip the queue and go in the VIP entrance and go straight on. Awesomeness. 

Arty shot...right?

First lot of chestnuts....yum!

After we went on the Ferris wheel, we headed down Oxford St for a bit and looked at the lights on places like Selfridges, which was pretty cool. I need to get those pis off my camera...so they are still to come. We also went down to Piccadilly Circus to look at the statue they had turned into a snow globe. Super cool!

Is it still skiing if its on Playdoh?

Piccadilly Snowglobe

Thursday was an early morning start. I was due at Marble Arch in town at 8am for another promo gig. We were "Rent aCrowd". A new store was opening up  we had to go and be a crowd to cheer when  big present opened up and sime taxi's drove out. It was bloody freezing! But it was kinda cool, there was fake foam snow and an awesome Christmas choir singing carols and it felt very christmassy. 

Once that was done and dusted, I shopped my way to Leicester Square (its an awesome thing to do haha) and went to see The Butler movie. Its a very good movie, well done, and a really good story. I recommend seeing it! After the movie, I went to meet up with Tess and we went to do more shopping around Kings Cross before heading back to Westminster and wandering along South Bank towards the ITV studios for Graham Norton!

I'd won tickets a few weeks back, and so Jen Ingrid, Tess and I went. It was a pretty awesome experience. We waited for about 2 hours before the show started, outside, in the cold. Lucky they had shelter though so we didn't get to wet! We got the wristbands, and were told that we would be very lucky to get in because there was a massive guestlist (friends and family etc) going that night. But we were reasonably close to the start of the line, so we decided to wait it out and see if we could get in....and we did, yay!!

Our seats were right up in the back corner, and quite a way away from the action, but we still got to see the stuff happening. It was an awesome lineup of guests too! Daniel Radcliffe, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mary Berry (from Great British Bakeoff) and the musical guest was Cliff Richard. And of course Graham was there too. We had fun watching the taping, and then went out for dinner afterwards which was nice, because I letf the next day for Aussie, so it was nice to hang out with them.

Friday morning, I was on again with the family, and I went with the 2yr old to her little dance class that she goes too, it was so cute seeing a whole bunch of 2yr olds trying to dance hahaha. After we got home, and she went for a nap, I had the afternoon off which was cool, because I was "on" that night during the flight etc.

So I went into town to meet Oli and we went to the Disney Cafe at Harrods. It was ace. There was Mickey everywhere and it was totally awesome. The food was expensive (I mean, what more can one expect from Harrods??) but it was fun, and well worth going too. After lunch, we did some gift shopping for the family that I was going to be having christmas with, so I spent too much money haha.

Home again to finish packing and shower and get the girls ready for flying and everything fun like that. It took us a while, but eventually we all piled into the car and whisked off to Heathrow!