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!!

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!!!

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!

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