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!!!

Dadaaaaa

As you can probably tell by now, Mondays have become my chill out, get jobs done, fluff round home kinda days. So thats totally what I did on the 4th haha.

Tuesday was Guy Fawkes. The family went out for dinner to a mates place to watch some fireworks from round London, so I was at home alone, hearing bangs but seeing nothing. A mate who lives round the corner finally got off babysitting at 9ish, so we went exploring then for some, but when we got to the hill we wanted to watch from, the cops had closed it down...lame! We ended up just having a very long walk home, but a good chat so that was nice.

We agreed to meet at the Zoo on Wednesday, cos she nannys for a 18month old, so it was something fun to do. Awkward though that her host father came along so we had to pretend like we had just met or something, but we still ended up having a fun time, even if it was bucketing down by the time we left the zoo.

I got a call that arvo too, from another agency offering me some temp hospo work, so I had to nip down the road to Primark to get me a black shirt to wear. And on the way back, I found Abbey Road. And then I found this. (I didn't realise it was so close to where we are/quite a far walk at the same time. Wasn't quite prepared for that one)

Abbey Road Studios.

So Thursday, I had to traipse out to this hospo place to meet the guy and chat over the work. Turns out he gets people for places like Twickenham, the O2 Arena, Lords....all the fun places! Sweet! I am in! I was pretty stoked with that. He seems like a really cool guy too, and will try his best to get you into work when you really need to. Thats gotta be helpful!

On Friday, I had a bit of a chat with Emma about how things are going. I'm having a great time in London, but I'm finding that I'm getting pretty bored and lonely during the day when Jake is at school. We chatted about it for a while, just coming up with some ideas as to what I can do and how to deal with it. That was good, and it kinda got a whole lotta stuff out in the open as well, which is always a good thing! Its nice to know I can talk to her about stuff.

The rest of the day was pretty standard, went to the gym, did nothing special in the afternoon. I was going on a big day the next day, so I cooked a packed lunch to take with me and then just chilled till Jake came home.

I had to babysit that night, and so Jake and I went out to Pizza Express for dinner, that was something fun for us to do together. He had a great time! When we got back home, he wanted to play cards, so he got into his snuggly PJs and we played Uno in bed haha. It was ace!

HA...so...

I updated last Saturday's, but realised I hadn't updated last weeks at all.

Soooo

Yeah.

Monday, I went out to Angel to collect my tablet - and get my refund! I went poking around some shops for a new tablet, but *sigh* still expensy. I also headed out to Victoria, and got a coach card for £10, so I can save up to 1/3rd off a ticket on National Express trips - which was convenient considering I had to get back from Bristol to London on a coach - so I pretty much saved what I spent, which makes it totally worth it. So that was a good one, yay!

Tuesday has turned into my gym day, so I had my Funky Bums, Tums and Thighs class in the morning, then pilates, before hanging out with Jake at home in the afternoon.

Wednesday, things changed. I got up in the morning, and Emma was in bed, sick with food poisoning. Not good for her, and it meant that I had Jake to myself in the morning. It was great, he was super well behaved, and we even got out of the house before 8.30 and got him to school on time! Granted, there was a little bit of bribery with the iPad, but I think that if Jake is willing to get ready and good to go for school, all well behaved, then why not give him 10 minutes playing a game? Its what life is like! Work hard, play hard haha.

I popped out during the day to do some tablet shopping and a few bits and bobs before I went away, but I felt kinda bad being away too long incase Emma needed something or someone came by or whatever, so I came home pretty quick and ended up watching a movie haha. 

So after school that day, and we did his homework and stuff, I had the idea of making a get well card for his mum. So that was fun. Lots of stickers and glue and sellotape included - which just happen to be some of Jakes favourite things haha. And I got him writing on the inside of the card, and any writing is good writing haha. So I like to think I did quite well then!

Thursday, Emma was still no good, so I got Jake to school and everything all good, so that was super.  I had my normal gym class, and library stuff to do, so I did that. It was my friends birthday that day, so we were gonna meet up with her and the kids she nannies for, but one of them threw up just as they were about to come out :(. I had told Jake we were doing something fun after school so we ended up going to the Zoo by ourselves.

It was a bit of a mission, cos we caught the wrong bus, so there was quite a bit of walking involved, but Jake coped super well. We had a packet of Malteasers which helped us get through it! We had a really cool time at the Zoo though, and poked around the reptile house, saw some Roo's have a bit of a fight and saw the adorable penguins, before missioning it back to the bus stop and going to a cafe to have a burger before we came home. The food took ages to come, and Jake was super hungry by this point, and he had started to complain of sore feet - no wonder!! But when we were walking home he started to need a poo super bad, so we pretty much ran home hah. But we had a lot of fun - I need to start doing more things like that with him!

Friday, Jake went to school with Emma, I had my aerobics class and on my way home I had to pick up Jake cos he was going to Devon on the train with his mum for half term. It was weird saying goodbye to them for a week!! I went down to Clapham - about a 40 minute train ride - and went to ASDA down there, which is like their Pak'n'Save. So I got a whole bunch of cheap food to take with me on holiday - so all I would have to buy while I was away was the odd bit of meat and milk - and so I did!

So yeah, that was my week! Fun times!!

LATE post, but its here!!

Hiiii.
I know I haven't updated in a while soz bout that!

Anyhu, last week Jake was at science camp again all week. I found a craft store reasonably near by and went there to get some scrapbook stuff, which was ok. Its been a bit of a palava since then with me getting charged twice for stuff, not getting refunds for others etc, hopefully that all works out ok!
It was suuuper sunny last week, ended up getting a little sunburnt! Ouchy. Just kinda hung out round home really, had a few play dates and yeah.

I found Oxford St.....Thursday I went into Euston Station to meet a mate. He had just come back from camp (where I went last year) and had time to kill at Euston station before a train home. After that I just went wandering in town for a bit. Managed to find Oxford St, finally! Amaaaazing street! I went into TopShop (whot, BTW do free personal shopping sessions...guess I'm just gonna have to get me one of those!) and got a really cool skirt for £13 odd, TopShop also do student discount -huzzah!, and just kept wandering. Found the Disney store. Geeked out a tad there! Went on down the street cos I wanted to get to Selfridges. Hehehhehe. Got there. Its amazing. I didnt have much of a chance to look round, but I booked in a free makeup thing at Bobbi Brown before I had to go get the tube home. Went to pick up Jake and we went to this indoor playcentre thing with climbing things and a ball pit etc. Mucked round there for a bit, I got into it sometimes....I met a really nice chick who gave me her number, shes also a nanny and is a Londoner, so meeting up with her tomorrow to get the lowdown!

Me with Princess Sophia the First

The next day I headed back to Selfridges for my makeup lesson at Bobbi Brown. I had a bit of time to kill before hand so I went around the designer galleries, especially the shoe ones! I wandered into the Gucci Shoe Gallery and some guy came out and showed me round. Zomgggggg. I didnt really like the heels much, but fell in love with some jandal type things and some sneakers (only a cool £250 as I found out online when I got home). Did this make up thing, wandered the rest of the store -loved the toy bit!! And then I decided to wander. I wanted to check out the Buckingham Palace  shop with all their Prince George stuff, so tubed to Green Park and wandered though, past my happy place (where I HAD to take pics) before I found the shop. Amazingly, I didn't buy anything. The mug I wanted (that goes with my royal wedding one and diamond jubilee one) doesn't have his name on it, it was an extra £20 for that, so I walked out to think about it, and I still am!

When we picked Jake up from Science camp that day, the 4 of us went to London Zoo. They have a family pass thing and are gonna get me a year pass, so we didn't catch everything while we were there, but I did have little HP geek out at the Reptile House! I think I wanna go back there one time without Jake so I can look round myself, but while we were there we had a good time. Just looking round, penguins and chimps and snakes. Fun times.

Yep, this is HARRY POTTER'S reptile house

My "I told you so" moment

This gorilla was just sitting there for ages,
like it was his photohoot

Tucans. Zomg. Coooool.

Butterfly Crysalisis'

Penguins swiiiim

Saturday rolled around. In the morning was the AB's test and I had arranged to watch it from home. Jake came up to my room cos he was super excited to watch the Haka haha. We watched it and about 20 minutes through the Internet cut out...nooo. I ran around the area I'm in and couldn't find anything open with Sky Sports, sucked. I ended up coming home and getting it on my phone with Radio Sport. Anyhu, after that, I had organised to catch up with one of the guys from camp. So we walked from Waterloo station to M&M world (which was a suuuper long walk!). MY GOD M&M world was super amazing. It was like 4 floors of chocolatey goodess. Anything you can think of that could be branded, was. It was amazing. The aircon has the chocolate smell going through it so it just smells of chocolate. Like, I don't even know what to say, it was just amazing. Hopefully these pics will do it some justice.

Piotr and I then went to Planet Hollywood for lunch...that was an interesting experience. Neither of us really knew what was going on....but we eventually got our food and ate, and then paying was an odd experience too....

And theeeeeen we went to the Museum of London. I was only there for a little bit that I needed to get back home, but I seriously wanna go back cos it looked amaaazing.

That night, I had Jake to myself as Emma and Ant were going to the theatre. Thankfully he behaved himeself quite well and we read some stories and he went to sleep pretty well. Phew!!

Sunday I chilled at home for the morning before heading out to the Notting Hill Carnival. It was an interesting carnival. For those of you who don't know anything about it, its a carnival celebrating the West Indian Community in London. It was full of drum and bass music and a whole lot of drinking and dancing and food. It wasn't me, especially not by myself. But yeah. I dunno. Bleugh.

I'll leave that week at that! It was a long post so congrats if you have made it this far!! I'll update the rest sooon xxx

San Diego Zoo

Its a pretty awesome place. We had to get up early, cos San Diego is a 2 hour drive, but it wasn't too bad. Amber hadn't seen the sea in over a year so she was excited about that haha. The GPS we had took us over a toll road which was lame, but oh wells. We had a mini stop to take photos of the sea lol.
Anyway, we eventually got to San Diego, parked up and headed in. Amber's mum had given her a voucher for money off our tickets, so that was cool. We headed towards the kiddies area first and the reptile house. Snakes are gross, officially. Anyhu, then we wandered round the kiddies area and found a Kea! It was cool, cos I had my Kahu the Kea toy, so we got some pictures of Kahu with the real Kea! The pictures are on Emma's camera, so I just have to wait to get them, be prepared for a picture post lol. A security guard came over and we were leaning over the fence holding Kahu up to the cage etc and this guy was laughing at us and encouraging us. The real Kea totally attacked Kahu's foot and tried to pull him into the cage too. Lols.
Then we headed out and around a bit, got some lunch and decided to go on the half hour bus trip round the zoo. We saw the new baby giraffe - less than a week old! The zoo is huuuuuuuuge! We saw some cool things, gorillas, orang-utans, chimps and so many spider monkeys and birds. The koalas in San Diego smell just as bad as the Koalas in Aussie lol. The hippos were fun.
Managed to spy a polar bear too, first one ever, which was cool. So many firsts really, gorillas, orang-utans, GIANT PANDAS!!!!!! That is the whole reason we went to the zoo was to see the pandas. OMG they were soooo cute and fun. We got there at a good time go watch one of them in the hammock eating some bamboo, which was awesomeeeeee. Naw the pandas were so cute. Kahu had fun with some stuffed pandas too, again, pictures to come.
Just general zooness went on, fun though. We caught the skyfari back over the zoo to the start and I wanted to go to the Kiwi trail,so we wandered over. The Aussie outback section is getting remodelled and so it was meant to be round there. We couldn't find it, so I went and asked a keeper, and he was all "It will open with the outback section" and so I was all "but NZ and Aussie are different countries...." and Amber and Emma found it rather amusing.
Anyway, after that we went gift shopping and I was annoyed that I couldn't buy what I wanted cos I have noooo room left in my luggage. But managed to pick up a small panda shotglass. They had so much koala merchandise too which made me lol.
Ahhhhh, now, anyways, gotta go now, app HP 7.2 is on TV!
CATCH YA LATER

Baby Fresh Giraffe



PANDA PANDA PANDA



Stopping for a quick look at the sea

ZOMG PANDA