TWICKENHAM

So, man, what a weekend this turned out to be!

I left home in the morning around 10am, and walked down to Primark in Kilbirn quickly, cos I needed a black scarf, and a small black bag, and a coffee! I caught the train, got hassled by many English Supporters on the extremly squashed train, was offered beers and ciders on the journey there, and finally made it to Richmond, where I met Ingrid.

We had planned on going to get some food, but that never happened cos we found the cheap shuttle to Twickenham, so we decided to get on that and see what happened when we got to the stadium. We got there, and it was like a massive party, fanzone type area. With a big band, trailers of food and drinks, big promo activities, all kinda of fun stuff! We found ourselves a somewhat less shady looking burger trailer, got something to eat, marvelled at the crowds and the atmosphere before we went into the stadium.

The stands didn't open for another half hour or so, and there was quite a big crowd gathering on the concoursey bit, so we decided to go check that out. Turns out that was where the teams came through. They didn't get a seperate, private entrance like at Westpac, they have to walk a gauntlet of people to get to their changing rooms. So we made a few friends while we waitied for the teams to turn up. It wasn't much, but the band played, and we cheered (but most of the AB's had massive doof doof headphones on) and then we went to find out seats.

I don't quite get why England wore purple

RICHIE

SEE! DOOF DOOF

 We found our seats, which were in the lower tier, so it meant we could pretty much go and stand pitch side while the teams warmed up. Again, somehow we happened to be right down the All Blacks end, so we watched them warm up, saw Justin Marshall, and the Sky Guys do their cross, and were just generally in awe of the fact that we were at Twickenham!

The Sky Cross to Kiwiland

We went to our seats for the anthem and Haka. The Anthems were ok, nothing special, at least they had a decent person singing them and they did both languages. For the Haka though, it was DROWNED out! We couldn't hear anything. The stupid English were singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"....grrr. Also, we need a song to sing back at them. Po Karekareana just isn't quite right (Plus, no one really knows the words!).

This is what was on the field for the anthems.....

And we settled down to watch a game. It was a great game for the first half, of course cos we were down the AB's end. Kieran Read scored right in front of us, yay! We had an equal lot of Kiwis and Poms round us, so there was a lot of banter which was fun. I even saved the spider on the Pom's rugby shirt, much to the digust of many of the girls around!

I went to get drinks at half time, my god the line for the male toilets wasn't even a line, it was like a bloody mosh pit. I didn't walk past the female toilets, but I just hope it was a little more civilised.

Anyway, game pics -

After the game, we went halfway round the stadium, cos thats where they were giving Dan his 100th cap and all the exciting presentations. I thought it wasn't nice that the English team just went straight into their changing room and didn't wait around for the presentations. But we did, and a whole bunch of Kiwis, and thats what matters!

I was pleased with these numbers.

Again, I saw TJ and he was walking back into the sheds, gave him a call and he saw me, waved and went it. Very important for later on!

The bars at the stadium were open for 2 hours past the game finishing, so Ingrid and I went to get a drink and then we went back out to where the teams walked in eariler on.

We were just standing there, chatting away to each other and this guy (Tongan/Kiwi) started to talk to us. Obviously, we started talking back, cos us Kiwis are too cool not to. He was great. And this is where I shall finish this blog, and start the next one, for the real big story starts here........

Australia?

So, I suppose the big news of the week (before I continue with my epic All Blacks storytelling) is that I've got a new job.

The job I was in just wasn't working out. It wasn't the family as such, it was that I was bored during the day, wasn't really happy in that I was lonley and just listless pretty much. The mother and I chatted about it a few weeks back, and decided we would give it 2 weeks and then chat it out again.

We did that, and as much as I had put in a lot of effort and really tried, it wasn't working out for Emma, the mother, which was fine with me.

She gave me 2 weeks to stay in their house, which was lovely, because I really don't have anywhere else to go!

In the mean time though, I have found a new job. Its about a 10 minute walk away from where I am now, which is good, cos I know the area. Its for an Australian family, but both their kids were born over here. They have a 4.5yr old and a 2.5yr old, both girls. They are a lovely family. I've spent a bit of time with them recently, and I think because we are from pretty much the same part of the world, they will understand where I am coming from a lot more with how I live and work.

I'm super excited about starting the new job! Also, because on Friday next week (the 6th of December) I'll be flying with them to Australia for Christmas!

Both the Dad and Mum's families still live in Brisbane, so I'll be going with them there. Its a trial while I am there, so fingers crossed it all works out!

I'm hoping I can get a trip home in there somewhere, so I will keep you all posted on that. But I'm excited that I get to have some summer, and some hot and some fun in the sun! And all the good stuff that goes with it! (Like seeing all my mates in Brisbane!!)

So I'm currently trying to pack up my life at the old place, as well as packing for Australia at the same time. All of a sudden I have so much to do!!

I hope to see most of you soon! (Fingers crossed!)
xxxxx

Bit of an exciting week - LOTS OF RUGBY!!

So after my amazing weekend, I ended up being quite sick - which was not so much fun. Just coldy, but feeling real yuck and blocked up and gross.

So on Monday, I literally slept till 12.30 and then was super hungry - so made some super slimy pasta which felt amazing going down my scratchy throat. When I went to pick Jake up from school, we went on a bit of a box hunt after school. He had to go as something number related to school on the Friday coming up, and Emma and I had talked about it on Sunday night and decided we should try make him a dice costume. So for that, we needed a box.

Once we took it home and I managed to cut it down to size (again, no injuries people, can we all marvel at this?) we gave it a nice coat of white paint. It was a huge job. Only because Jake made it so difficult. As Emma put it, Jake went way to Jackson Pollock on us, and managed to get paint everywhere, even under his armpit (I don't get it). But once we had tidied up, and the box had dried a bit, it looked pretty good.

A pre dotted di(c)e

Tuesday, I was meant to go to the gym, but I had missed out on booking the early class, so decided to catch up with a mate for coffee who I hadn't seen in a while, and we had a lot to discuss! So by the time I got to the gym for my pilaties class, I was feeling full of yuck, so I went back home again, and had another nice afternoon sleep, which left me feeling a lot better! That afternoon, I cut out a whole lotta circles out of cardboard and painted them black. Jake wasn't so into that, but once I stuck them on the dice he loved the final product!

Wednesday, I still wasn't feeling great, but I'd booked in for a personal shopping thing at Forever 21 in Oxford St, and I really wanted to go, so I did. I had a great time shopping with this lady, she had picked out some outfits for me and then after trying them on I went all around the store showing her what kinda stuff I liked and she was great at helping me put it all together into an outfit and showing me what works. It was awesome!

It was a super nice sunny day, and Jen and I had agreed to meet up and go and eat some lunch in the park. So we went to M&S. As we were going in, I saw a rather large, tall, familiar looking man walk out of the store. It took me a few seconds to place who it was, but then when I looked around his mates, I realised it was Jeremy Thrush, and Ma'a Nonu, and a whole bunch of the All Blacks! I went a little giddy, and was just talking to Jen being all "OMG Its the All Blacks" and kinda moving forwards a little before I was just like, Oh wtf, and I went up to them and asked for a photo. They were kinda surprised to be recognised I think, cos they all looked a little stunned, but I eyed up Jeremy Thrush and just said "Oh come on, I'm from Wellington" and all the guys did that little "oh she actually knows who we are" kinda laugh thing. So I eventually conned them into taking a photo with me. Liam Messam didn't wanna be in it, so he took the photo while Jen just stood by awkwardly watching, cos she didn't know who they were! It was all very surreal, running into the All Blacks in the middle of London, but it was also super cool, and I got very excited! After the photo, Ma'a Nonu asked me where the nearest Nando's was, I had no idea and I tried to direct them in the general direction, but I got it completely wrong. But then I tweeted them about it and I think they found it eventually. When we went into the shop, the security guard pulled us up and was like "who were those guys?" and when we said the All Blacks, he had no idea who they were, lolz.

Jen and I had a great picnic in the park after that and then I had to mission it up to the Sports Fields to pick up Jake and then he had a play date, so I pretty much had the evening to myself.

Thursday I attempted my gym class in the morning, but it didn't go down to well, I was a sweaty heap of mucus at the end of it - yuck! I came home, and slept the arvo away haha.

Emma's Mums' were here for the Weekend, her mum Jen and her partner Soo. It was cool to have them here and finally meet them, and have them look after Jake! We hung out in the afternoon, and I spent the evening cleaning my room, while they were all down here chatting. I think thats something I miss a lot from home, is just hanging out and chatting with people at night, I need to start to get out more!!

Friday, I missed out on booking my gym class this day, which turned out to be a blessing!

But first up, Jake had to go to school in his costume. He was super proud to be wearing it, and it seemed to get a really good reaction when we turned up at school!

One of my friends over here was slightly gutted that she missed out on seeing the AB's in town the other day (I don't know why, she's not really into rugby) and so she wanted to go to try and see them today. So I manged to find out which hotel they were staying at (which wasn't too hard, because of all that press about the English Journo that snuck in, all the papers printed the hotel name) and we hung out there. We were the only females there for most of the time, although a few more showed up when the AB's emerged. They were in and out all morning for the first few hours we were there, but we just kinda watched. There were a couple of older guys there who were actively sourcing AB's signatures for their rugby balls, and we just watched. We did try tweeting Cory Jane a lot, but we got no replys....amazingly! So we started tweeting Dan Carter, and Jim Kayes, and anyone else we thought might actually reply...

But when the team bus turned up and they started coming out, we got all excited and started getting pictures!!

The first guys that came out, I didn't really know. One of them (the guy in the pic with just Lexi) we talked to him for a bit about how we could get a photo with all 3 of us in it cos he was so tall and Lexi was so short. But we ended up with this....

Then the next guy started coming out, and no one was going after him for photos or autographs, so I felt sorry for him and got a picture, so we ended up with this.....(Looking at it now, I'm wondering who took the photo....)

And then the mayhem started, because I spotted Cory Jane. We went over to him and started chatting with him about why he didn't tweet us back (apparently he fell asleep, typical) and we just had a good ol' chat. Hes so much fun! And then we asked him to follow us, and he said "you never know your luck"....ohh....ominous.....and then we got a picture. Cos he has a big ego and likes getting his photo taken. I love Cory. The guys who had been with us all morning said to us that they wanted to be sure we got to see Cory cos they knew we had been tweeting him all morning and wanted to see him, so that was sweet.

See, this is my STOKED face

Annnnd then I looked up to the hotel, and I saw TJ coming out. TJ's club back home is Norths, which is the club Dad takes photos for. I mentioned Dad, and TJ totally remembered me (At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not, but it turned out to be brilliant...more on that later). And of course, I got a photo. I had to get two, cos the first one was blurry, and Rusty wouldn't be impressed. I told TJ that it would go up on the Norths FB page and he laughed and said cool. I'd lost Lexi by this point, she got lost in the crowd!!

And then I turned around, and saw one of my other favourite Hurricanes - Beudan Barrett. He was carrying some Rice Crackers and I told him they would be better with Nutella on them. Him, along with me, lamented the fact there was none in the team room. sucks!

Then Richie came through, but he just barged through everyone :(, no one had a chance. By this stage there were about 20 people there, mostly wanting autographs. There were some guys there who were after the big guns, Richie, Dan, etc, cos if they could them to sign a pic of them, then they can onsell it for a massive profit, so that was a little unfair I thought.

And then there was Aaron Cruden. I don't really remember what happened with him, but he was there, so a picture was taken.

And then I managed to catch Julian Savea just before he got on the bus (hence the pole). I personally thanks him for staying with the 'Canes. He appreciated it, I could tell.

And then it was the moneeeeeey shot! Dan was signing a whole bunch of autographs but I managed to wheelde my way in to right beside him, and asked him for a photo. He said yeah, and then motioned for the camera while he was signing, quickly put his head up and smiled, and then got on the bus. I was GIDDY!!!

 I turned around from that, and it was Steve Hansen. He's really not much of a looker, but hes pretty neat, so I totally asked for a pic from him too!!

So yeah, all in all, it was a great adventure.

I found Lexi, we both geeked out for a bit, and then I saw some media guys. Turns out it was the sky TV guys (found that out the next day) and I asked them where Jim Kayes was. They said he was down at the market and they gave me a whole lot of details about what he was going to eat haha.

Lexi and I were hungry anyway, so we headed down to this Natural Food market to poke round and see what it was like. And it was expensive haha, so we left and found an M&S for some food. Om nom nom.

After that, I quickly had to pop home to get changed, cos I was working a Harlequins game that evening. Its like the British Super Rugby. But it was all the way down in Twickenham, so I had to mission it down there, and work.

I was behind the bar in a beer trailer thing, and it took me a while to get used to saying pounds instead of dollars, and all the drinks and their weird requests, but I got used to it, and was working with a lovely Aussie girl and we worked out a system so we were on FIRE! I also gave a lot of banter about the AB's. A couple of people picked me out as a fellow kiwi so we had a little bit of a natter, which was fun!

Didn't get home till after 11, so I was knackered!! But straight to sleep because it was to be a MASSIVE weekend......

Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, Bath, and other fun adventures!

YAY! Time to be a tourist.

I'd booked a bus tour a while ago, when a voucher came up on a site, so it was a little cheaper to do things. We still had to pay for the attractions, but getting there was a little easier.

It did mean a super early morning though, I had to get up at like 6.30 and be out of the house by 7.30 to get to the coach in time. Don't know how I managed to do it, but I did and even got to the coach on time. Hurrah!

I went with another Kiwi Au Pair, she had to travel a bit to get to London first up, but it was easy enough for her. 

First up, we went about 45 minutes away to Windsor. I've wanted to go there for a while but haven't made it, but now I know I really wanna go back!

We had a bit of time to kill before the castle opened, so we just wandered round...again, super pretty!

But once the Castle did open, it was a whole bunch of fun! We met another Kiwi nanny who was on our bus trip and her and I got along really well, super glad to make another new friend!

We got some audio guides which were quite helpful. As usual though, you weren't allowed to take pictures once you were inside, so you will have to settle for the pretty outsdieness of Windsor Castle. 

The entrance to Queenie's bit

That's the Queens bit

A very very very wet changing of the guard.

After spending about 1.5hours looking around the castle (which wasn't nearly long enough, but I got my ticket converted into a One Year Pass, so I can totally go back again for free!!), we went back to the coach for a long drive to StoneHenge.

You can see it from the road, so we saw it, passed it, got into some heavy traffic, just to get onto a road to double back ourselves to go up to it. It was silly. I knew you couldn't touch the stones, or get too close, but it was still cool to go and look at them. The Audio Guide was great, but it was so damn cold that I didn't want to stay outside for too long! I'd love to have a day there in summer and just play with the sun on the stones taking photos, it would be fun....Rusty needs to come and give it a go! Anyway, here are a few of the photos I did manage to take -

Get one photo of the stones, got them all. They don't change much....

It was nice to get back on that bus!

After StoneHenge, we drove to Bath, which again, was a bit of a drive, but worth it - even though I had already been to Bath! I purposely didn't do the Roman Baths when I was there last time, because I wanted to save something for this trip - so we did the Roman Baths. Man, its super amazing the kind of stuff those people got up too, and how clever they were about doing it. I still find all that historical stuff fascinating and they way they worked out how to use what nature was giving them to their advantage - amazing.

pics? K

Theatre mask from Roman Times....no wayyy

Ahh, the good ol' Immersion pool

I want a baaaath

Drinking the water

So after Bath, we had a big adventure back to London. No surprises, I slept most of the way!!

When I got back to London, I came home, dropped off all my stuff, and had to head to Clapham for a friends leaving do. It meant I missed the ABs-France game which was annoying, but the night we had made up for it! It was so much fun. We just hung out at a pub which played some really fun music (I may have screamed and stamped my feet in glee a little when One Direction came one....) and I managed to meet a whole lot of new people and make some really cool new friends. I ended up staying at my mates place, cos I wasn't quite sure how I was gonna get home, haha, so we had pancakes for breakfast and discussed the nights events on Sunday morning, and it was briill.

By the time I got home on Sunday, it was midday, so I pretty much just spent the day tidying up and chilling out at home. The family went out to more fireworks stuff, so I just pottered round and did my own thing. It was quite nice really, and cos it was such a lovely sunny day, I felt amazing. Its amazing how sunny days make you feel all the better!